CBA for the BNTU to be Formulated

The Belize National Teachers’ Union (BNTU) hopes to finally sign a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the Government. The CBA signing has been in limbo for the past fourteen years, passing through both the Musa and Barrow administrations, and is still yet to come to fruition. The BNTU has expressed discontent that there has seemingly been no effort from the Briceño Administration regarding Proposal Twenty-Two which seeks to have GOB pay one hundred percent of the salaries of teachers who are employed at grant-aided secondary schools. Minister of Education, Francis Fonseca, told the media today that he is hopeful that a framework can be formulated within the upcoming months.

Hon. Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education: “At a meeting in December with the Prime Minister I was at that meeting the joint unions met with the Prime Minister in December at that meeting we agreed to a timeline to look at the CBA. We said that we wanted to by no later than around June we wanted to come up with a framework for settling and finally signing off on the CBA. We’re hopefully that that can be accomplished, a framework moving forward so we have certain things we have to do. We have to do a lot more data collection. We don’t have accurate information regarding some of the outstanding issues on the CBA so we have agreed to make sure we get all the accurate data that will allow us to make good decisions but we want to keep to that timeline so we still have a few months to work out the finalization of the CBA.”