NTUCB Plans Labour Day Festivities to Celebrate and Advocate for Workers

May 1 is Labour Day, and the National Trade Union Congress of Belize has a day full of activities planned to honor workers in the public sector. The umbrella organization for various unions is hosting a celebration in Belmopan that combines merriment with pertinent information about labour issues currently affecting the country. NTUCB President Ella Waight spoke on the upcoming festivities, including the annual Labour Day march and the event’s focus on the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Bill.

Ella Waight, President, NTUCB: “Labor Day, like we mentioned, is the best year for the labor movement. That’s where we celebrate the workers. We celebrate ourselves as workers. On 1st of May in Belmopan we’ll be having a march. It will begin at the May Garden Park at nine o’clock. We will have our floats in there and the floats perfectly will be on the theme for OSH. So we’re spreading that importance of OSH. We will then go to the May Garden Park where we’ll be having a rally and we’re doing the tripartite approach where we’ll be having government, employers and unions in one place giving that same message; Partnership, ensuring that workers again get the best out of this partnership. At Labor Day Rally, we’ll be having the best band in Belize, Superfuria Band. They’ll be playing the music and exciting the crowd, boosting the crowd. That’s where the party, the party aspect, the celebration aspect is. Our members are supposed to reach out to their executives, to their union representatives to ensure they get the survey form that they need to fill out because there’ll be free transportation for members from south, from north to south, so that they reach Belmopan safely and that they enjoy themselves. But one more aspect of Labor Day that we must ensure members realize, there’ll be webinars to educate them. We’ll be having webinars on the OSH, we’ll be having webinars on collective bargaining. Labor Department is partnering with us they’ll be having a webinar on labor rights and there’ll be one on protecting unionism. So they also have a responsibility to join these webinars. It’s on those same forms and educate themselves.”