The proposed four percent salary adjustment from the government isn’t sitting well with the unions, and now we know why. President of the Belize National Teachers Union, Nadia Caliz, is raising red flags over the fine print. According to the union, accepting that four percent bump would also mean agreeing to a contributory pension scheme and pushing retirement to age sixty-five. It’s a package deal the unions say they simply can’t accept. Here’s more on what’s fueling their firm rejection.
Nadia Caliz, President, Belize National Teachers Union
“ I want to say to educators in this room that early retirement is fifty, voluntary retirement is fifty-five, and mandatory retirement is sixty and I’m touching the educators for right now. Now, if this rule changes, then you’re looking at that voluntary retirement being removed to everything being mandatory at sixty, but one of the reasons why we disagree with the blanket sixty-year-old that they are proposing is because different employment or different jobs require certain physical and mental capabilities. So imagine a, a soldier, sixty years old, they need certain stamina. And what exists in Belize today ,what currently exists in Belize today is that our military personnel, our military personnel, they have a different retirement rate or age. They have a different pension act, so it differs. So what we need to need government to say to us, are we going to put everybody at sixty. What is going on, and this is the reason why we object to contributory pension being the condition under which we are going to accept any salary, advance or adjustment, I must say, salary adjustment. Now, as sister Sharon said, we don’t know if it’s a scheme. We don’t know if it’s a fund we don’t know. What we do know is that if we’re talking about contributions, we don’t want our monies in the government. Consolidated revenue fund.”
