BTL Employees Owed Severance Despite Pension Plans

Senior Counsel Eamon Courtenay says the real challenge now lies with current employees who’ve been part of pension schemes that didn’t include severance. That means BTL may have to go back, look at years of service and calculate what those workers are owed when they retire or resign. And it doesn’t stop there. Former employees who only received pension benefits may now be entitled to severance too. The ripple effect of this judgment could be massive. So how will companies respond? And what does this mean for workers across Belize?

 

Eamon Courtenay, SC, Attorney-at-Law

“The more fundamental challenge that BTL faces are its existing employees who are participating in the pension scheme, but that pension scheme does not include an aspect or an element of severance. They will now have to reach back and look at all their existing employees and say well, “You were with us for ten years, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years, whatever the case may be and calculate how much severance those people will be entitle to when they retire or resign.”  In the case of other companies, the same applies. If you have a pension scheme that does not accrue severance and you have employees employed then you need to start accruing for it from the time of the employment of each employee. If employees have left, they are entitled to come to the company to say, “We now see the CCJ’s judgment. When I left, I only got the pension benefit, I want severance benefits to be paid to me now.”