Three-year LIAT severance ordeal nears end

Barbadian former workers of the Antigua-based LIAT (1974) Limited have begun to receive the final part of their $10 million severance payout, winding up one of the longest waits ever for a state-owned enterprise to compensate former workers.

Barbados TODAY confirmed on Monday that the government has started honouring the bonds component of the payout after the cash element was disbursed in July last year.

Prime Minister Mia Mottley had promised just over a year ago that the administration would pay all 89 eligible Barbadian workers up to $75 000 each in cash according to their calculated severance liability and that any payment over $75 000 would be paid in bonds. The latest cash payment cost just over $4 million, while the price tag for the bonds has been put at a little under $6 million.

With the former workers having been paid the cash portion last July, the first disbursement from the bonds has now been made and will continue for another 41 consecutive months.

And the man who had been spearheading the fight for terminated Barbadian employees to be compensated, not only expressed delight at this development but showered the Barbados government with praise.

“The former staff of LIAT are finally being fully settled in terms of the bonds portion that was promised to us that was part of the ex-gratia settlement from the Government of Barbados…and once again, we are extremely grateful,” former pilot Neil Cave told Barbados TODAY.

“The hardship we have gone through was quite significant over the last three years, and the government would have honoured the cash component in July last year, and they are in the process now of honouring the bonds which would equate to the remainder of the severance for the staff. So everybody is absolutely elated, because it happened quite suddenly.”

He pointed out that those affected can now put the whole saga of LIAT behind them, to move forward and to “really truly rebuild their lives; and that is all thanks to our government.”

But while he is over the moon for the Barbadian employees, Cave said he is hurting for his Antiguan counterparts, whose government was able to find $20 million to invest in a revived LIAT but could not reach a settlement for committed and loyal former airline workers who continue to suffer.

“The only two governments so far that have settled the matter of the former LIAT staff… some 600 of us… would be Saint Lucia and now Barbados is fully meeting its commitments,” he noted.

Prime Minister Mottley announced in Parliament in March 2023 that the government would pay the LIAT workers’ three-year-old outstanding severance.

While waiting to get their entitlements, some ex-workers lost homes, vehicles and credit cards. Many more had lost faith in the carrier’s shareholder governments of Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Dominica.

Mottley had  explained that her administration could not have afforded to pay the Bajan employees’ severance any earlier due to insufficient funds.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb