THE DAYS OF JOB SECURITY ARE NUMBERED

Mar 20, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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I am more than surprised that those employees of CLICO (Guyana) who have been sent home are surprised by the action of the management of the insurer. I am shocked and disappointed that they are surprised.
After all, I am sure that many of them would have been reading this column ever since their company went into problems. I have consistently over the past few weeks, expressed the opinion that I do not expect CLICO (Guyana) to survive. I see very little that would change my opinion that the company is going to be liquidated.

When the news broke that the Commissioner of Insurance had applied to the Courts for CLICO (Guyana) to be placed under judicial management, I indicated immediately that this only takes place if there is a belief that the company should be wound up. The law is quite explicit on this point.
Of course, having applied for judicial administration, the Judicial Manager has to eventually prepare a report indicating to the Court an option as to the future of the company. The Courts, after hearing persons whom it believe ought to be heard, will then determine what the best option is for the future of the company.

The financial straits of the company however, I believe, strongly predispose towards it being eventually liquidated. If fifty per cent of your assets is impaired overseas, if there has been a local run of the company to the extent that CLICO had to sell its bonds in the Berbice River Bridge, if there is a likely large deficit in the statutory fund, it is most probable that CLICO (Guyana) cannot be rescued and the best that can emerge from this situation is that the pension plans and long-term policies are forked out to other insurers and some plan devised to work with government to secure the interests of other policyholders such as those with savings and investments plans, which have been designated as insurance policies.
I am therefore surprised that some of the staff members of CLICO (Guyana), on receiving their termination letters on Wednesday, were taken by surprise. They should not have been because ever since three weeks ago the writing has been on the wall that the day would come when they would have to look for other jobs.

Of course, over the past weeks, there would have been the need to maintain all the staff so as to verify all the existing claims that are still pending. This is why up to last week the Judicial Manager indicated that no staff member had been sent home. However, since CLICO (Guyana) is not doing any new business, it is impossible for it to continue to carry over ninety staff members on its books. It simply cannot afford that anymore and so persons had to be let go.

I do not know if because of the guarantee issued by the government that some of those staff members felt that their jobs had been secure. They should not, because unlike what has taken place in Trinidad and Tobago, the Government of Guyana has not taken over CLICO (Guyana) and I doubt whether it ever will.
All the government is saying is that no policyholder will lose his or her money. It never promised that no worker would be laid-off. It cannot make such a promise. However, I have not heard any of those dismissed complain about the government.

It is always hard in a small economy when workers lose their jobs. Certain types of jobs, especially those in the financial sector, are not easy to obtain and with computers now dominating the workplace, there is a reduced need for workers, even though admittedly the sector is far larger than it was today.
I do not anticipate that it will be easy for those employees who have been sent home to get jobs at the same levels and salaries, which they enjoyed with CLICO (Guyana).

But there are openings available in Guyana, so long as persons are prepared to work hard, and in some instances to take a cut in salary just to secure a job.
I am sure also that with the experience some of the workers have gained working with CLICO (Guyana), other insurance companies would willingly employ them, so long as there are vacancies. But this consolation I know is not much to a person who may have worked years with a company only to be sent packing.

It is reality, however, that it happens every day in the developed world. Financial crisis or no financial crisis workers are laid-off during periods of contraction of business and most of them never regain their employment with their old firms. That is how market economies work and that is a reality, which more and more Guyanese must come to recognize.
Gone are the days when you can expect to start your career in one company and retire in that company. Those days are over. If, of course, you are a government employee in Guyana you can work until retirement, and better yet, if you are a big wig or relative of a big wig within the PPP you can work until you are ninety.

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