Photo: Jorge Mejia, 1st Vice President of the BNTU to hold over as Acting President of the Union
BELIZE CITY, Mon. Sept. 4, 2023
After only two months serving in the post of national president of the Belize National Teachers’ Union (BNTU), Ruth Shoman resigned effective September 1. Shoman made known her intentions during a virtual meeting on Thursday, August 31. However, given the precedent she had set when she rescinded a letter of withdrawal she had submitted even before she was installed as president, many waited to see if she would follow through the next day as committed. And she did. In a 7-page resignation letter, she outlined a historical background of her service to the Union during 11 years and provided her perspective on the issues that led to her resignation, as well as listed all the tasks she completed during her 2-month period at the helm of the union.
Shoman also expressed to BNTU Executive Secretary Keesha Young-Flowers that choosing to resign at this juncture was not an easy decision, “but after the multiple abusive attacks against me, I have decided to walk away from this toxicity for my own well-being.” She also made the claim that she had not been awarded due process and so she said her lengthy explanations were intended as a final statement on the issues that surrounded her presidency.
An emergency meeting of the Council of Management (CoM) had reportedly been called for Saturday, September 2. Amandala independently confirmed that a request was made for Shoman to present her letter of employment at the meeting; however, she announced her resignation before. On the day of the meeting, as per a Memorandum from the CoM today to BNTU membership reporting on the developments, Shoman informed that her resignation was not only limited to her presidency but also to her membership in the union. In her resignation letter, Shoman reveals that she sought her own legal advice and was informed that she did not need to prove her eligibility to be a union member, but that she still chose to share her letter of employment with the Executive Secretary and the 1st Vice President, but did not authorize them to share it with anyone else, including the CoM as that would be “a direct violation of my privacy.” As regards another claim relating to eligibility to be a union member, Shoman clarified that the accusation that she wanted to remove a section from the Constitution referring to ineligibility if they have a criminal record was false. She states, “The Constitution Committee had suggested that for clarity purposes, the section was to be removed from where it was located and placed under the section of Code of Ethics. There was never a suggestion to strike it off completely.” She states that she was misrepresented in the media.
After Saturday’s emergency meeting, the CoM also notified the membership about the way forward. Until the next National Convention slated for April 2024 when there will be a by-election for the post of president, 1st Vice President Jorge Mejia will hold over as Acting President. It is expected that the Union will negotiate with the Ministry of Education for Mejia to be seconded to the post, so he continues to get his salary as he would like any other teacher in the public sector.
Here we note that the matter of the salary of the national president of the BNTU had become one of the topics of contention ever since Shoman was elected to the post on April 13, 2023. All previous presidents had been seconded to the post, but Shoman was not employed at an educational institution in Belize and so this could not be done in her case. Her detractors had raised concern over a proposal during a review of the BNTU Constitution and By-laws for there to be a President’s Fund. In her letter of resignation, Shoman called the claim a campaign tactic with her critics, alleging that she wanted the union to pay her a salary. She explained, “What I had shared with Council as a progressive thinker was that the union should create a sinking fund so that in about 10 years, the union can start paying the salary of the National President, as is done in other countries, so that the union does not become dependent on government. This would make the union stronger and would lessen the possibilities of political infiltration.” She said this was never shared with the media.
Also in her resignation letter, Shoman presented a view that has also been espoused by her supporters: that her challengers knew the information they used against her even before the election. Shoman reports in her letter that, “Before election day, a member of Council made a vague allegation against my person. I admit to responding that the Council member who was making accusations against me had engaged in active party-political campaigns which contravened the Constitution for persons elected at branch or national level.” She then affirmed that notwithstanding that vague allegation, no one made an official complaint against her. She does not say in her letter whether she thought it important nonetheless to address the allegations at the level of the union’s Council of Management to air out the matter; but we are told that was not done and several Council members did not become aware of the accusations until they were publicized after Shoman had been elected. One of Shoman’s supporters on social media affirms that there was a failure on the part of the union’s leadership to vet candidates. They say this should have occurred after nominations were made.
On other matters that were raised, Shoman said she presented to the CoM a copy of her police record showing it is clean. In her 3,000+ word letter, Shoman also made allegations of her own. One of them was that she had recommended that an external audit be done of all branch accounts after there was an indication that “allegations had been made that there was not proper accountability of the union’s funds in certain branches.” She also cited a study that a leading member of the group of 25 teachers challenging her said was done regarding the union’s Revolving Loan Fund. Shoman writes that the study needs to be presented because “… the motion was tabled based on that ‘study’ which resulted in the membership losing thousands of dollars as a result of an abrupt reduction of the interest rate. Had it not been for Council’s intervention to hire an expert to look at the impact of this reduction and then later undo the motion, the loan scheme to help our teachers would have been completely destroyed.” That member told Amandala that teachers were not getting the best deal on interest rates at BNTU as it was like they were competing with the banking and financial institutions when the union should not be for profit. She states that while, indeed, there was a reduction in profit as a result of the interest being reduced to 5%, the loan program remains profitable as there were no losses and every loan yields a profit.
Shoman outlined other areas she intended to tackle to raise the bar and concluded her resignation letter stating, “I am not sure if my campaign topics, my fiscal prudency approaches, or my type of leadership have cornered me to where I am today …” She then apologized to the Council and members “… for having the union experience these unnecessary destructive moments. Today, I walk away because I realize that my presence will only continue to hemorrhage the union I love. No person is bigger than the union. Certain members, for whatever reason, seek to address the union’s business in public, not realizing the long-term negative effect this will have, not only for our members, but also for unionism in this country. Not only backgrounds should be vetted, but also actions of members who do not show good intentions for BNTU. I have served my union with pride and honour, and I walk away with a clean heart knowing that I have always made decisions in the best interest of our members.”