Former BTL Employees Renew Calls for Unpaid Severance

Amid today’s heightened political and union activity outside Belize Telemedia Limited, former BTL employees also renewed long-standing calls for the company to settle severance payments owed to them.  Emily Turner, representing the Belize Communications Workers Justice Group, says former employees remain firmly opposed to the proposed acquisition of SMART by BTL, arguing that outstanding obligations to workers should be resolved before the company undertakes any new financial commitments.  Turner reiterated that former workers are still awaiting severance payments, which she says were upheld by a ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice, and she appealed to BTL to honor that decision.

Emily Turner, Protest Participant: “We’re not in support of any acquisition. And I think that that’s the main reason we are making a presence here because of what we understood that the board is meeting. And I’m hoping that they will make a conscionable decision and say that they are not gonna vote for this thing. Now, in reference to the severance that the employees, the former employees of BTL are owed, we once again wanna say that the CCJ has ruled that this severance is owed to us. And there is no statute of limitation that should bar any employee from receiving this severance and so we are going to be following this and making sure that it is paid to every single one of us and I think from our press conference yesterday we gave a detailed report about everything that we have done to try to get BTL to comply with what the CCJ has ruled and it’s very disappointing that an organization as respected as BTL is in this country does not want to respect the highest score that this country recognizes. So that’s why we are gonna make sure that we’re out here and we’re gonna continue pushing this because BTL must comply with what the CCJ has ruled.”

Turner emphasized that former employees have waited years for resolution and says today’s developments only heighten concerns about priorities and accountability within the company.

As of this evening, Belize Telemedia Limited has not issued a response to the renewed appeal from former workers.