While one battle has been won, the CWU is still fighting others on behalf of its members. One of those battles is with the Belmopan City Council. Flowers explained that they have been waiting three years for the council to sign off on a CBA, and even though municipal elections are coming up again, they are no closer to an agreement. She also explained that the council refuses to negotiate a salary increase for the workers.
Leonora Flowers, President, CWU
"There is another employer again coming from the City Council-in fact, this one I can call out the name: the Belmopan City Council, directly under Mayor Pablo Cawich. A friend of ours, a unionist, he will tell us that every time we sit down, and his city administrator will say they are unionists, but that leaves a lot to be desired. We are looking at a CBA that was signed in 2005, the old CBA. It passed Mayor Chanona, Mayor Simeon Lopez, we went through Sharon Palacio, Mayor Khalid Belisle, and we continue to negotiate. At the conclusion of Mayor Palacio's term, we had concluded all the discussions on the CBA and we had concluded an employee handbook as well under the then HR manager. When Mayor Cawich and his city admin took over, told us in our first meeting, 'We won't sign anything; we will go over the document.' No problem-we sat with them and we dialogued with them, and that was three years ago. Three full years ago, and to date our members are still working and cleaning the streets of Belmopan and picking up our garbage, and they have not been attended to. They're still out of uniforms; we get promises after promises after promises. Enough is enough. And so today we're speaking on their behalf. Come to the table, Mayor. The last meeting we had with the Mayor was 5th of August, and he said we cannot afford anything, we cannot afford to give a salary adjustment-but yet they continue to pack the City Council's pay sheet with additional people to work. If you can't give a salary adjustment to our people who are there, how can you then find money to pay people to come to work?"
"Frankly speaking, the CWU is tired of begging and begging and begging for them to put what is right for our people."
And the CWU says it's important to finalize the CBA as soon as possible-not just because another election might delay it further, but because their members are enduring inflation without a salary increase to help.
Leonora Flowers, President, CWU
"It's very important because we know we go to election by next year, by March. So we are hoping they put something on the table for our members today. In fact, we've been begging them to do it for the last three years. First they said 2027 we'll give you something. Now it's 2028 and they're still not putting that in writing-give it to us in writing; that has not been done. I have said that personally to the Mayor in our last conversation: send to the CWU in writing that you're prepared to give whatever it is, Mayor."
Ella Waight, 1st Vice President, CWU
"I don't think it's simply because of elections next year, but we have people who have families that have not had a salary adjustment for years, when they see the Public Service just got some recently, a salary adjustments. Other entities are getting under CWU-we're negotiating and we're getting salary adjustments; we just got one for the stevedores. So we have to ensure that this form of improvement in lives is spread out between all our members, all our entities, all our affiliates that fall under the CWU."
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