Minister Francis Fonseca says government is committed to restoring the 8.5% for Teachers

Tensions between the Government of Belize and the country’s major unions reached a boiling point, as the National Trade Union Congress of Belize (NTUCB) and its affiliate unions staged a press conference condemning recent government-sponsored ads and calling out what they described as bad-faith negotiations. The controversy stems from a June 5 counterproposal by Minister of State for Finance, Chris Coye, which ties the long-promised 8.5% salary restoration to pension reform measures, an offer that union leaders have rejected. Responding to the backlash, Senior Minister Francis Fonseca explained that the government is committed to restoring the 8.5% increase but insists that it must be implemented responsibly, and in phases.

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade, Culture & Immigration: “There’s a lot of misinformation out there about pension reform. What we’re talking about is new entrants into the public service, new people coming into the public service what we want to do is have an agreed upon start date say for example October of this year when we will say any person who enters the public service after that date will have to contribute to the pension, will be a part of a contributory pension scheme. Right now we have a non contributory pension scheme. The only country in the Caribbean with a non contributory pension scheme. We’re the only country along with Guyana that still has the retirement age at 55. You know what the retirement age in Barbados is today ? It’s 67, that’s the retirement age in Barbados. Pension reform for new entrants. Now in terms of existing public officers there’s a proposal on the table for specific categories of those officers that has to be worked out in consultation with the unions. So for example you might say nobody who has been in the public service for more than ten years will be affected. That sort of thing has to be discussed and negotiated.”

As the government fine-tunes its proposals for Cabinet review, union leaders are warning of escalating action if their concerns continue to be ignored.