Disgruntled Former BEL Workers Take Fight to National Assembly

A dispute that’s been simmering for months has now spilled onto the steps of the National Assembly. Members of the Belize Energy Workers for Justice say they’ve protested, held meetings, and exhausted every avenue, but still feel ignored. Now, they’re turning up the pressure, demanding severance pay from Belize Electricity Limited, like what former BTL employees received after a court ruling. The group says BEL is preparing to take the matter to the High Court, even as they call for changes at the top, including the removal of newly appointed Chairman Lynn Young.

 

Dorla Staine, Member, Belize Energy Workers for Justice

“We have protested before. We went to BEL headquarters. We had press conferences. We have spoken to the minister. He said he support us and he will take our matter to Cabinet, to the AG to look over the records as BEL is preparing to go to court again on a matter that has been ruled. We don’t understand that. So we find it crucial to come here today to see if we could talk to the prime minister who is the head of the whole country and he has the biggest decision to make and help us the elderly who have already given our time and our efforts to the country. Belize says they are going to the High Court to seek what they call declaratory relief to see if the court will tell them that they are on the right track or whether otherwise they should pay us, which we don’t understand. How can they not understand what is a court ruling. They are trying to tell us what applied to BTL does not apply to us. And that is not the case, because our severance is not wrapped up in our pension and that is what they are trying to say. We want to stress that court does not take overnight. The ruling, the Marin Group took that in 2020 to the court. the ruling came out in 2025. That is five years. Some of us don’t have that time. As we said to the other reporters, we have members who have died, members in the hospital and members who are just limping along.”

 

As the dispute heads toward a likely court battle, these former workers say time is not on their side, and they’re urging leaders to act before more of their colleagues are lost waiting.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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