BTL Must Pay Severance to All Retirees; Pension Doesn’t Replace Legal Rights

There’s a major win today for former Belize Telemedia employees in a landmark case before the Caribbean Court of Justice. Ten retirees, some forced out at fifty-five, others who took early retirement, argued that they were owed severance pay under the Labour Act, even after receiving pensions. And tonight, the CCJ agrees. The Court ruled that severance is a legal right, not something employers can waive in contracts or replace with pension benefits. In fact, BTL admitted during the hearing that its pension plan never clearly accounted for severance. That concession sealed the deal. This afternoon, we spoke with Senior Counsel Eamon Courtenay who broke down the landmark decision.

 

Eamon Courtenay, SC, Attorney-at-law

“We were hired by quite a number of employees, former employees of Belize Telemedia Ltd. who had ceased their employment with the company. Some had resigned, some had voluntarily retired, and some had reached the agreed retirement age of fifty-five. So it was three classes of people and they all retired and got pension benefits. We were consulted to find out whether they were entitled to severance benefits as well, because in the early or mid 1990s, BTL had been advised that because they had introduced a pension scheme they no longer needed to pay employee severance. And so, these employees came and said they had received their pension benefits but they had not received their severance benefits, are they entitled to it? We researched the matter and felt that they were entitled to it. They succeeded before the High Court, BTL appealed to the Court of Appeal and the Court of Appeal ruled that the persons who had resigned were entitled to the severance benefits and those who had retired who had retired voluntarily and those who had retired at fifty-five were not entitled. And so, those employees took it to the CCJ, and today the CCJ ruled that all the employees, those who resigned, those who retired voluntarily, and those who reached the retirement age were all entitled to severance, as well as pension.”