Ella Waight Elected as NTUCB’s New President at Annual General Meeting

The National Trade Union Congress of Belize (NTUCB) has a new leader. This weekend, at its 58^th Annual General Meeting (AGM), the umbrella organization elected a new executive led by Ella Waight. The employee of the Social Security Board went head-to-head with past president Marvin Moro. Moro secured 25 votes, while Waight garnered 37 votes at the AGM in San Ignacio Town, Cayo District. The NTUCB is an umbrella organization that represents various trade unions and plays a significant role in advocating for workers’ rights across Belize. Today, we spoke to Waight about her new role and how she plans to ensure the union remains focused on improving the country’s working conditions. 

Ella Waight, President, NTUCB: “As you can imagine, being a unionist for the past 23 years, being the president of NTUCB was one of my goals, simply because of the passion that I have for unionism and the commitment I have to workers to ensure that workers receive justice, that workers have rights, that employers abide by. So, I was very elated when I won the election. I did put in work weeks before. I had sent out flyers to our delegates. I had sent out my plan and vision to our delegates. So, and I even called the delegates personally to ensure that they knew who I am, my experience and my knowledge and asking their support and of course, asking them if I do win that they ensure that I can have their commitment to work with me to ensure that NTUCB reaches its goals and objectives. The good thing is that being… I was already the director of gender affairs at the NTUCB so I had met a lot of delegates already. I know most of them personally. So reaching out to them was like reaching out to a friend. Just telling them, hey, you know, I’m interested in running for the president, do you support me? And to be honest, many of them right away said yes. Yes, it’s Ms.Ellie you have our support. We know you work hard at the NTUCB, we know that you have put in at CWU, we know your commitment to unionism. So it was an easy conversation to have and to garner their support. The resolutions at our AGM, at the moment we’re still finalizing some of them. One that I can clearly think will definitely affect the workers of Belize and its country is to ensure, I’m not giving you as it was written, but the concept of it is to ensure that we promote our different organizations and national companies in Belize, that we ensure that we buy local and ensure that our money stays in the country.”

Waight replaces outgoing President Luis Luke Martinez, who served two consecutive terms. During his tenure, Martinez became known for his firebrand unionist and a vocal critic of the government. Yesterday, we spoke to Martinez about his time as the union’s leader and what he was able to achieve.

Luke Martinez, Outgoing President, NTUCB: “I’m excited, right? And some people say Brother Luke you rarely find leaders at this level who are excited to hand over the baton. And four years ago, when I started on this journey, I started on the platform of inclusivity and literally without leaving any union behind and we worked hard and tirelessly for that. We worked on our strategic plan to prepare for today, right? And so it’s an exciting moment for me. I believe that we’ve made some significant improvements to what we do at the National Trade Union Congress. One of the biggest accomplishments. that we’ve had is the signing of the Decent Work Country Programme. I think just this week you all covered some projects that will be rolling out between this year and next year that is tied to the strategic plan which contributes to rural development, it contributes to governance, it contributes to workers’ rights, it contributes to occupational safety and health, it contributes to the comprehensive labour review that we’ve started to work on. So that is one of the biggest things that we could have achieved because the strategic plan is also tied to the Sustainable Development Goals, goal number eight, which is decent work and economic development. So it’s a great honour for me.”

Other executive members include First Vice President Jorge Mejia, Second Vice President Clifford Martinez, General Secretary Phillip Tate, Assistant General Secretary Ayona Shantel Ramirez, Treasurer Jaqueline Medrano-Cruz, Assistant Treasurer Shane Reneau, Director of Gender Affairs Trisha Perez, Auditor Sharon Fraser, Councillor Karim Thompson, and Trustees Luke Martinez and Roy Briceno.