TSTT payroll clerk loses $1m retirement claim

A TSTT payroll clerk will not be getting any of the almost $1 million she was seeking from the telecommunications provider, but instead will have to pay more than $60,000, as she has lost her claim.

In an oral decision on Thursday, Justice Frank Seepersad ruled against Brenda Mark, agreeing with TSTT that no offer was extended to her for early retirement.

Mark claimed the amount was owed to her as part of the company’s voluntary enhanced early retirement plan (VEERP), a pension lump sum and a reduced monthly pension.

A permanent employee of TSTT since 1984, she said she submitted an application for VEERP in April 2014, and her lump-sum figure was calculated and given to her. It amounted to $974.289.04.

She was invited to financial counselling sessions and said she believed TSTT was serious about “the binding agreement” which was formed when she accepted the early-retirement offer.

However, Seepersad said there was no evidence before the court that beyond the first step of inviting employees to apply for either voluntary separation or retirement, the company took any further steps. He also pointed out that Mark was still employed with TSTT, so could not be entitled to the retirement sums she claimed.

Seepersad ordered her to pay a fraction of the costs claimed by TSTT, amounting to just over $60,000.

Mark’s lawsuit also said she and other employees were told of an industrial-relations matter filed in the Industrial Court over voluntary separation and pension packages for TSTT workers, but the company never contacted her about any changes in relation to the VEERP process.

She said she was never a member of the union for TSTT’s employees, so it did not represent her interests with regard to her acceptance of the early-retirement offer, and whatever was agreed to in the case before the Industrial Court had nothing to do with her.

In that matter, TSTT had agreed there was a breach of contract in relation to the offers and, by consent, agreed that everyone who applied for VSEP and VEERP would receive a lump sum for their years of service, multiplied by 2.5 months’ salary for junior staff, or 3.5 months for senior staff.

Mark's lawsuit claimed in October 2015, TSTT withdrew the VSEP and VEERP offer and hence she did not get her VEERP lump sum, her pension lump sum or reduced monthly pension.

Mark testified at the short virtual trial last week Wednesday.

It was TSTT’s position that the application for early retirement did not form a contract between the company and the employees, and the circular sent to them was not an offer but an invitation to apply for either VSEP or VEERP.

Attorneys Martin George and Sara Martinez represented Mark. Attorney Sashi Indarsingh of MG Daly and Partners represented TSTT.