Belize
The ITUC affiliate in Belize is the National Trade Union Congress of Belize (NTUCB).
Belize ratified Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise (1948) in 1983 and Convention No. 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining (1949) in 1983.
Legal
Freedom of association / Right to organise
Freedom of association
The right to freedom of association is enshrined in the Constitution.
The right to freedom of association is regulated by law.
Anti-Union discrimination
The law prohibits anti-union discrimination, but does not provide adequate means of protection against it.
Restrictions on trade unions’ right to organise their administration
- Restrictions on the right to elect representatives and self-administer in full freedom
- No person under the age of 18 years may be a member of the committee of management, a trustee or a treasurer of a trade union (section 20, Trade Unions Act).
- Restrictions on the right to freely organise activities and formulate programmes
- Restrictions apply with respect to the use of trade union funds for certain political purposes (section 37, Trade Unions Act).
- Administrative authorities’ power to unilaterally dissolve, suspend or de-register trade union organisations
- Where a trade union fails to submit to the Registrar, by the 30th day of June each year, a return including the trade union's registered address, names and addresses of officers, total of fully paid-up members and audited financial statement, the Registrar may suspend or cancel the certificate of registration for that trade union, after giving due warning to comply (section 15, Trade Unions and Employers' Organisations (Registration, Recognition and Status) Act).
Categories of workers prohibited or limited from forming or joining a union, or from holding a union office
- Other civil servants and public employees
- The Trade Unions and Employers' Organisations (Registration, Recognition and Status) Act does not apply to the Belize Prison Service of the Belize Fire Department (section 3).
Right to collective bargaining
Right to collective bargaining
The right to collective bargaining is recognised by law but strictly regulated.
Barriers to the recognition of collective bargaining agents
- Previous authorisation or approval by authorities required to bargain collectively
- Before entering into collective bargaining negotiations, a trade union must apply to the Tripartite Body for certification as the exclusive bargaining agent of the relevant bargaining unit. The Tripartite Body shall determine an application made by a trade union under this Part as expeditiously as possible, but in any case not later than three months after receipt thereof (sections 23-28, Trade Unions and Employers' Organisations (Registration, Recognition and Status) Act).
- Excessive requirements in respect to trade unions’ representativity or minimum number of members required to bargaining collectively
- A trade union must have a majority of the employees of an employer in a bargaining unit as its fully paid-up members in order to be certified as the sole and exclusive bargaining agent for the bargaining unit (section 23(1), Trade Unions and Employers' Organisations (Registration, Recognition and Status) Act). Even where only one trade union applies for certification as a bargaining agent and the employer agrees to recognise the trade union as the exclusive bargaining agent, the trade union must achieve support from at least 51% of the employees in a bargaining unit in a survey carried out by the Tripartite Body (section 27(2), Trade Unions and Employers' Organisations (Registration, Recognition and Status) Act). Further, any employee in or an employer of the bargaining unit may – at any time after the expiration of one year from the initial certification – apply to have the bargaining agent certificate withdrawn on the basis that the majority of the members of the bargaining unit no longer want to have the trade union as their bargaining agent (section 38, Trade Unions and Employers' Organisations (Registration, Recognition and Status) Act).
Restrictions on the principle of free and voluntary bargaining
- Compulsory conciliation and / or binding arbitration procedure in the event of disputes during collective bargaining, other than in essential services
- The Settlement of Disputes in Essential Services Act 1939 (SDESA) empowers the authorities to refer a collective dispute to compulsory arbitration.
- Authorities’ or employers’ power to unilaterally annul, modify or extend content and scope of collective agreements
- Where a trade union is certified by the Tripartite Body and recognised by the employer or the employers' organisation pursuant to this Act, any collective bargaining agreement which is currently in force negotiated by a previous trade union for the bargaining unit may continue in force, and the trade union with current certification shall have such rights and enjoy such advantages and benefits and assume such duties and obligations in relation to such agreement as if it were the bargaining agent which negotiated the agreement (section 36, Trade Unions and Employers' Organisations (Registration, Recognition and Status) Act). Further, where a trade union's bargaining certificate is withdrawn, the Tripartite Body may make such directions in respect of the validity or duration of any collective bargaining agreement negotiated by the trade union for the bargaining unit which is and currently in force (section 38(5), Trade Unions and Employers' Organisations (Registration, Recognition and Status) Act).
Limitations or ban on collective bargaining in certain sectors
- Other civil servants and public employees
- The Trade Unions and Employers' Organisations (Registration, Recognition and Status) Act does not apply to the Belize Prison Service of the Belize Fire Department (section 3).
Right to strike
Right to strike
The right to strike is recognised in the Labour Law.
Ban or limitations on certain types of strike actions
- Restrictions with respect to type of strike action (e.g. pickets, wild-cat, working to rule, sit-down, go-slow)
- No more than three persons may take part in a picket at any one place at any one time, and persons participating in the picket must wear a distinctive badge or armlet bearing the word “Picket” inscribed in legible characters. The purpose of the picket must be limited to peacefully obtaining or communicating information or peacefully persuading any person to work or abstain from working (section 30, Trade Unions Act).
Undue interference by authorities or employers during the course of a strike
- Authorities’ or employers’’’ power to unilaterally prohibit, limit, suspend or cease a strike action
- The Settlement of Disputes in Essential Services Act empowers the authorities to prohibit or to terminate a strike in services that should not be considered essential under the ILO definition of the term.
- Authorities’ or employers’ power to prevent or end a strike by referring the dispute to arbitration
- The Settlement of Disputes in Essential Services Act 1939 (SDESA) empowers the authorities to refer a collective dispute to compulsory arbitration, to prohibit a strike or to terminate a strike in services that cannot be considered essential in the strict sense of the term, including the banking sector, civil aviation, port authority, postal services, social security scheme and the petroleum sector.
Undermining of the recourse to strike actions or their effectiveness
- Excessive civil or penal sanctions for workers and unions involved in non-authorised strike actions
- Any person involved in a strike in contravention of the Settlement of Disputes in Essential Services Act shall, on summary conviction, be punishable by a fine of two hundred and fifty dollars or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or by both such fine and term of imprisonment (section 16, Settlement of Disputes in Essential Services Act).
Limitations or ban on strikes in certain sectors
- Undue restrictions for “public servants”
- All persons employed by or under the Government, in the same way as if they were workmen employed by or under a private person, are covered by the Settlement of Disputes in Essential Services Act 1953. This Act gives the Minister the power to deal with a trade dispute in any way which seems expedient, including referring the matter for settlement by the Tribunal established under that Act. The Act also prohibits workers from taking part in a strike in connection with any trade dispute, unless the dispute has been reported to the Minister and a period of 21 days has elapsed since the date of the report and the dispute has not during that time been referred by the Minister for settlement (section 15). Any contravention of section 15 shall, on summary conviction, be punishable by a fine of $250 (BZD) or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or by both such fine and term of imprisonment (section 16).
- Discretionary determination or excessively long list of “essential services” in which the right to strike is prohibited or severely restricted
- The Schedule to the Settlement of Disputes in Essential Services Act sets out an excessively long list of 'essential services', including airports, monetary and financial services, the Port Authority, postal services, sanitary services, telecommunications services, the Social Security Scheme administered by the Social Security Board and services in which petroleum products are sold, supplied, transported, conveyed, handled, loaded, unloaded or sold.
In practice
The 150 stevedores employed at the Port of Belize Limited (PBL) should have been going on strike on 17 October 2018 when their representative, the Christian Workers Union (CWU), did not reach an agreement with PBL regarding their collective bargaining agreement. Both groups had initially stopped negotiating after PBL had declared an impasse and the CWU’s response was to initiate their intention to strike.
However, PBL workers were prevented from taking industrial action as the Minister of Labour, Dr. Carla Barnett, added ten days to CWU’s notice. She also told the media that the Labour Department was considering arbitration or court petition to resolve the dispute.
Since the adoption of a Statutory Instrument in 2015, the Port Services in Belize became an essential service. As a consequence, workers at the Port of Belize are required to provide a 21 days’ notice before any industrial action can be taken, allowing for early intervention by government into collective disputes. The provisions of the Statutory Instrument are in clear contravention of ILO Convention 87, which protects the right to strike.
The Christian Workers Union (CWU) has been unable to get two recently fired employees of the Belize City Council reinstated. They first wrote a letter to the Council and got no result, and on Tuesday May 15, representatives of the union including the union president, Evan Mose Hyde, and the general secretary, Floyd Neal, were unable to get the council to budge.
In a release to the media, the Belize City Council explained that the meeting took place but that they will not be rehiring the two employees, who are members of the union who were recently fired.
For his part, Hyde has told the media: “We are extremely disappointed with the Council’s decision to deny the request for our members to be reinstated. The union is forced to take our grievances to the Labour Commissioner, to have his intervention on this matter.”
On Monday 4 August 2014, 43 employees of Belize Maintenance Limited (BML) were held for more than seven hours at the Queen Street Police Station for staging a protest demonstration outside City Hall. The spontaneous protest took place after employees learnt that at least 50 of them would be sent home because BML could not pay them, as the company had not been paid on time by the Belize City Council. The sanitation workers had not received their salaries for 19 weeks.
Those arrested were each charged for taking part in an unlawful public meeting, and a littering violation – they had scattered garbage bags as part of the protest – which would cost them $500 each. Activist Delroy Herrera described how the police had trapped the demonstrators in a blockade on Queen Street and using batons herded them into the station for processing.
Attorneys speaking on behalf of the demonstrators felt that unnecessary force had been used by police. Among those locked up were women with persistent medical conditions who reportedly fainted and suffered without their medication.
Two days later the Prime Minister intervened and decreed that as part of the resolution to the dispute the charges would be dropped. In October the Magistrate’s Court dismissed the charges against the BML workers. The Council paid BML the salary arrears owed, and in January 2015 it integrated 158 BML employees into its own staff.
The Ministry of Education asked parents to pick up their children from school because teachers would be attending a meeting with Minister of National Security John Saldivar to speak about the issue of a pay increase. At the same time negotiations were on-going with the Belize National Teachers Union, the Association of Public Service Senior Managers and the Public Service Union. This meeting with teachers individually was therefore an attempt to undermine the collective negotiations.