Over 170 Former BTL Workers Still Await Severance

Belize Telemedia Limited says it has now complied with the Caribbean Court of Justice ruling on severance payments, but the fight may not be over for everyone. In a statement issued over the weekend, BTL confirmed that nearly all eligible former employees have received their severance, with ninety‑eight percent of claims already settled. Still, questions remain for dozens of former workers, including members of the Belize Communications Workers for Justice, whose cases the company says fall outside the legal time limit. Today, News Five’s Britney Gordon spoke with BCWJ members to find out where their long‑running battle for severance now stands.

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

The Belize Communications Workers for Justice says it’s not backing down in its long fight for severance from Belize Telemedia Limited. The group represents more than two hundred former employees, and more than one hundred and seventy of them are still waiting to be paid. BTL maintains those claims fall outside Belize’s six‑year limitation period for simple contracts and says its Board of Directors will make a decision at its next meeting. But former BCWJ president Emily Turner tells us the company’s latest press release brings no new answers, and little comfort, to workers who say they’ve waited long enough.

 

Emily Turner, Former President, BCWJ

“This press release basically is saying what we knew two weeks ago when we decided to have this, to make this public, that hasn’t changed. And the reaction from our group is that we are disappointed. We have engaged BTL previously in very diplomatic ways where we had written to them and we were expecting a favorable feedback from them. Especially that we have had the Minister of Labor speak about it. We’ve had the Prime Minister as well speak about that a statute of limitation doesn’t apply, but still to us, they’re dragging their feet.”

 

For weeks now, members of the group have taken their fight to the streets, protesting across Belize and calling on BTL to pay former employees before moving ahead with its acquisition of Speednet. The message has been clear: settle the severance first. According to Emily Turner, the group was told the company would get back to them on short notice, but until that happens, she says their position remains unchanged.

 

Emily Turner

“It took thirty-one years or thirty-two years since severance stopped being paid and only a pension was paid. And now the CCJ rule, November fifth, we are we are now three months again, and we just wanna make it clear that this press release is, doesn’t change our position. The people that have left BTL for more than six years, their severance is still not being honored and we make it again, a point to say that. This is justice being denied again, and now we’re waiting three months even after the CCJ has ruled.”

 

BTL insists these claims fall outside the statute of limitations, making the former workers ineligible under the CCJ’s 2025 ruling. But the Belize Communications Workers for Justice argues otherwise, saying that very ruling overrides BTL’s position, and should clear the way for their severance to finally be paid.

 

Paul Perriott, Former Employee, Belize Telemedia Limited

“The judge from the CCJ had ten people weh ney rule for. The oldest person that left, not the oldest in age, but one of the persons left in 2007. And then someone left in a 2020 something, but three people left in  2007. So we have otta the ten, at least three people or four people left prior to BTL using a limitation act. So the laws of Belize does have a limitation act, but the judges are saying that limitation act does not have anything to do with our right that’s embedded in the labor laws.”

 

Turner shares that a large portion of the workers demanding their severance are senior citizens, still they wish to continue fighting, even if that means taking the matter to court themselves.

 

Emily Turner

“We’re disappointed, but we are not gonna give up. We had already mentioned to them in a letter that we sent last week that we don’t want to have to do these things, but if we have to take this internationally, we will, because we are affiliated with international labor unions. We are affiliated with we have our contacts in the Caribbean Congress of Labor, so we don’t wanna have to do that. But if it requires for us to do that, we will. Because all of us in the Caribbean recognize the CCJ or many countries in the Caribbean recognize CCJ as as their ultimate court that we go to and some workers follow that process. You can’t come now and now the workers that are in the same situation, like some of them you’re saying, no, I won’t pay you.”

 

BCWJ member, Paul Perriott says that this fight extends beyond the two hundred members of the group and represents Belizeans across industries pursuing justice.

 

Paul Perriott

“Da no only we da BTL, it cover other unions weh sign inna ney agreement that because we can have pension, they give up a severance. All ah ney thing the judge say are illegal.”

 

The group now awaits a response from BTL but does not plan to halt its industrial action. Britney Gordon for News Five.