Public Workers Still Waiting as Salary Talks Stall

The salary dispute between public sector workers and the Government of Belize is still dragging on, with no clear end in sight. On Wednesday night, the Public Service Union (PSU) held a virtual meeting to figure out their next move—but so far, no official word has come out about what was decided. At the heart of the standoff is an eight-and-a-half percent salary increase that public officers, teachers, and senior managers say they’ve been waiting on for too long. The government recently offered a three percent raise instead, but that proposal was quickly turned down. Cabinet Minister Francis Fonseca has weighed in, saying that any pay raises should be based on performance, a comment that’s sparked even more debate among workers who feel they’ve already earned their due.

 

Francis Fonseca, Former Minister of Education

“As a responsible government, we have to, as we’ve always been saying, and this should be no surprise to the Public Service Union because in every meeting, and we’ve discussed this, we’ve always said these salary increases should be tied to specific targets. They have to be tied to performance targets. We’ve also been discussing with the joint unions, for years now, cost-saving measures, pension reform and revenue enhancement measures. We have committees that we have established to review all of those issues and come up with specific recommendations. So we have to allow that process to work. We have to have salary increases that are connected to performance targets. I think any reasonable Belizean will say, anybody, where you work, anybody who works in the private sector or works anywhere, salary increases are tied to some performance target. So that has to be an important component of it, as well as pension reform. We have said, for many, many, many years now that the current pension scheme that we have in place is unsustainable.”