Stillborn Employee Rights Tribunal: When the Rights of Workers and the Interest of Trade Unions Differ
In explaining reinstatement, the employee returns to the workplace after careful consideration by the Tribunal and it would be as if the dismissal had not taken place” …In respect of reengagement,” she continued, “the employee returns and if there is suitable employment for the employee, they return to employment that is comparable [to their previous job
The Employment Rights Act – A New Era For Barbados 17 May 2013
Almost seven months ago Prime Minister Fruendel Stuart intervened in the dispute between the Barbados Workers Union (BWU), National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) and the National Conservation Commission (NCC) how 200 workers were selected to be retrenched. Stuart admitted publicly that mistakes were made in the process and the matter had to be resolved by the Employee Rights Tribunal (ERT). It was reported in the media that both the NUPW and the BWU welcomed the Prime Minister’s intervention and dutifully briefed their respective membership to expect a speedy resolution.
Subsequent events have shown that the ERT has not been able to function – a new ERT Board has to be appointed after nearly 18 months – and consequently the NCC matter has been in abeyance along with 70+ other cases. Of interest at the time, and highlighted by head of Unity Workers Union Caswell Franklyn, was the suggestion the NCC matter would have been catapulted to the top of the case load for hearing by the ERT. Because the first attempt to operationalize the ERT failed, the attempt to influence the scheduling of cases by the political directorate is relegated to moot status.
If the ERT, through no fault of the dismissed NCC workers has been unable to convene, BU sides with the view the NCC workers should be reinstated until such time the ERT is able to rule. The government cannot be expected to be taken seriously that it wants to build a society and not demonstrate the mantra by its actions. The leader of the Opposition Mia Mottley highlighted in a press release in May 2014:
But there are also existing deficiencies in resorting to procedures under the Employment Rights Act. Just to mention two:
1. Although the Act was passed in 2012, the Minister of Labour has not made Regulations as required by section 49.
2. The Employment Rights Tribunal was established in July 2013 but no prescribed forms have been published to assist employees in filing complaints in a standardized way. An aggrieved employee can begin a complaint by any method. This is unsatisfactory.
The Tribunal is simply not ready.”
To fast forward: the NUPW has agreed to stage a protest march when parliament reconvenes after the Christmas break to register its concern at the the length of time it has taken the ERT to rule on the matter. In contrast, the BWU announced it will stage no similar action, and instead, wait until the a new ERT convenes. BU finds the different positions taken by the two unions very interesting. Based on a press report which quotes General Secretary Toni Moore, the former NCC workers “have determined for themselves and not with any coaching by us that they would want to pursue the matter following a course of principle – one that seeks to demand for themselves justice because they are satisfied that had process been properly observed to date, those among us in this audience would still have been working”.
History will record that the ERT and by extension the government has not represented the interest of the NCC workers. The inability of the BWU, NUPW and CTUSAB to effectively champion the rights of the workers has betrayed the extent to which trade unions have been emasculated by the political class in Barbados.
BU remains hopeful that Hal Gollop QC rumoured to be the Chairman of the new ERT will dispatch the backlog of cases pending. We will have to wait to see the priority the NCC matter is given by the new ERT.
Barbados Underground 
Representation of workers should be the priority of all trade unions, but over the years and even more so in these times the two major unions in this country have relegated the interest of workers way behind party political considerations.
The Prime Minister is on record acknowledging that the process to retrench workers, at the National Conservation Commission, was flawed because it did not adhere to the instructions given by the Cabinet. That alone should be the reason why the workers should be reinstated without any reference to the ERT. How is it possible that the Cabinet can give written instructions to statutory boards and one of those boards defy the Cabinet without any adverse consequences to the people responsible.
The unions accepted a situation where the PM referred the case to the ERT that has never functioned, but worse yet, in a situation where the PM does not have the authority to make any such referral. He had the power to order the NCC to do the right thing but chose not to do the right thing.
Even if the Cabinet chose not to reverse the decision to retrench the workers, they were duty bound to do the honourable thing by giving instructions to pay compensation. There is no dispute on the entitlement of workers to compensation for pass service. As a matter of fact, the ERT does not have authority to adjudicate on the entitlement for severance pay. There is absolutely no reason why the payment of severance should be delayed, unless the Government did not provide the NCC with the necessary funds and they are employing delaying tactics.
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Agree with the above comments 100% it is a delaying unlawful tactic.
As a private sector employer I could not get away with this.
Both the Labour & NIS Departments would have been heavily involved.
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This whole debacle is tantamount to the old saying…………send the fool further and further.
We have a heartless, uncaring, insensitive government and to think that this DLP has always fooled the people that they are for the poor man. My heart goes out to these poor people and I wonder how they are able to put food on their table or pay their bills.
These are the same gullible people that took money from these uncaring morons last election and voted for them! These morons obviously do not need these people’s votes again!
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@ Caswell….Could these NCC workers be compensated for time served, and then be reemployed as if they had never been there before, provided that there is placement for them? Either way they were short changed by the institutions they pay for representation.
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Hamilton Hill
If the retrenched workers are paid their separation packages and they persist with a claim before the tribunal, they could still be entitled to additional compensation for unfair dismissal. The tribunal could even order reinstatement or re-engagement which would be treated as if the terminations never occurred and the workers would be entitled to their wages during the time they were away from work.
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What about the tone from minister Jones as reported the front page of the Nation newspaper? Yesterday it was the Don.
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Thanks Caswell. One could only hope that this avenue will be the first one traversed by those to whom they have have given thei money. God knows that they deserve this and then some.
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@ Caswell Franklyn January 7, 2015 at 8:01 AM #
“The Prime Minister is on record acknowledging that the process to retrench workers, at the National Conservation Commission, was flawed because it DID NOT ADHERE to the instructions given by the Cabinet.”
What implications does disobeying the instructions of the Cabinet have on the management of the NCC, and by extension, Denis Lowe? What will be the consequences?
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Bulls in china shops.
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Artaxerxes
A certain amount of gonads is required to make the minister suffer any consequences, sadly those gonads in the Prime Minister are not fully developed.
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@ Caswell Franklyn January 7, 2015 at 4:49 PM
Do you expect any drop of seminal power to flow from a castrated sleeping giant?
Even in his ‘priapic silence Two Sons must be always on 24-hour call just in case the sleeping giant rouses to discharge a round of verbal urine to dampen the flames of social or political discord until the pact with his collegiate devils comes to a full pensionable end.
The man is an perpetual procrastinator daily robbing Barbados of any chance of economic revival. Even a politically-welcomed decision of rearranging the uselessly obese and venally soiled furniture in his Cabinet seems to be a herculean task he is incapable of undertaking in a timely and appropriate manner.
The people of Barbados want to see a new face as the MoF instead of the proven liar who Pinocchio nose appears to have run out of tall tales of projects coming on stream with yarns of promises of economic growth and recovery.
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Wuhloss miller,
The above post is out of the top drawer. Oh my lord!
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Apology to extended to Wayne Pilgrim-Cadogan whose name was assigned to this blog. This is a BU household blog.
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wuhloss caswelll you figure out the name of the brasstacks moderator yet where you were the guest could not believe how many times you kept calling the moderator david .. was that an intent, or were you so blinded and confused that you could not tell the difference . good gracious! good grief! and to think that Bush Shite have you for his No1 man to change things around in barbados,, but then again bush shite is mad as hell, just a stone throw away from jenkins,
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So far no comment about the appointment of Hal Gollop as Chair (to be confirmed),
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Workers Rights Tribunal??? Stupse.
Lotta long talk. REAL legislation if the govment was serious, would address;
These were suggested a while ago on the blog, which them who does do, read.
But noooooooooo, Workers Tribunational Review and Committee Assessment and Analytical Tribunal ….
Lotta long talk that means nothing.
We want the meat, not the bones, where is the meat???? Left by the wayside with the good intent?
Stupse.
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A certain future coalitional regime of Barbados – and of which the PDC shall be a part – shall help make sure that the only multi member corporate business entities possible in Barbados at the time are PARTNERHIPS.
Such a regime shall also help make sure that such PARTNERSHIPS are owned by the PARTNERS themselves, and, more so, SOLELY owned by the PARTNERS found in the respective PARTNERSHIP enterprises themselves.
As such there shall be in that period of great social transformation the necessary evolution from the statuses workers to the statuses of PARTNERS.
In Barbados, such PARTNERS shall have legal and constitutional rights to ownerships of the PARTNERSHIPS; shall have legal and constitutional rights to have a say in the direction in which such PARTNERSHIPS are going and in how they are organized; shall have legal and constitutional rights to access and to have all information and knowledge so critical to the carrying of the latter functions, and shall have legal and constitutional rights to be remunerated out of any remunerations that are left at any given times once expenditures have been committed to the relevant people.
Hence such a coalitional regime shall help bring about for Barbados a higher state of existence for all social beings in this country on the basis of such necessary and fundamental changes in the industrial and business settings of the production and distribution sectors of our nation.
Such a coalitional regime shall at the same time also help make sure that – in Barbados – there shall be the substantial ABOLITION of the current evil wicked dehumanizing demeaning oppressive and exploitative work system and culture of this country, and with it the rightful coming to an end of these backward destructive exploitative Trade Unions whose leaders seem to think that the lot of the vast majority of very productive people in this country is to be WORKERS – and not entrepreneurs, investors, producers, and owners of much wealth and property in this country.
So, Down with every single stupid Trade Union in this country. What idiotic Employment Rights Tribunal What!
Forwards Ever, Backwards Never!!
PDC
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@PDC
Given the two ramshackle ram goat BLP and DLP parties the Coalition may win some favour by default.
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David,
People seem to be so immune to what is going on that they do not care about Hal Gollop’s appointment. Will it make a difference to the lives of those who are so gravely affected? I fear it wont!
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Fool me once …shame on you ….fool me 3, 4 ,5 times….wanna is a Pxxxy’s….Bajans* re-elected a team of D-dimwits came feb 2103 and deserve some n more…like Buzzzi said on the call in program….”DEM din elect themselves”…Think Horace would say otherwise had he been alive….now they making a MOCKERY of we…and why not…Bajans got four more years of pantomine and themselves to blame.
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@ od onion bags
Seems like 4 but it is actually 3 more years since elections were held in 2013.
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…like you forget how d Sleeping Giant….STREGHTTTTHHHH D damm ting tah D baller….YES I say 4 years….
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The more pertinent question is why Barbadians did not vote for the alternative.
On Thursday, 8 January 2015, Barbados Underground wrote:
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@ David/Bu
The question to ask is why do people sell their vote to persons with cash (Bd$) that comes from dishonest deals, without thinking or caring about the suffering of themselves or family
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..”bring ya ID $$$$” fa one……Bees did have reservations bout a win (it paid off too) and DEMS (as wid all true genes) “tief a bait”….. a true fisherman wud tell ya fish dat tief baits duz be hooked all down in the gills..ask Hants….LOL
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Slightly off topic but I see Mary Redman is back grabbing the limelight again in the teachers dispute.
In the current spat between the unions and Ronald Jones about the teachers absence during the school day she is quoted as saying that the Minister’s “mouthings…go against the International Labour Organisation Conventions 87 and 98”.
Now I am not an expert in these matters but when I look at Convention 98 which is about protection of workers rights to union membership it says such protection shall apply to “…… participation in union activities outside working hours or, with the consent of the employer, within working hours.”
I saw no sign of consent by the employer, so it it correct that the teachers ttendance is not protected?
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Is there any truth that at Christmas time, mainly, when some constructions firms are closed off , some 4-6 weeks for vacation, that the employees are paid by the National Insurance ? Perhaps Caswell can explain the true arrangement.
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Colonel
Some construction companies schedule the annual holiday for their workers to coincide the time that they close for Christmas, and the workers are given their vacation pay. Others lay off workers when they close for Christmas and those workers apply to NIS for unemployment benefits. Then there are some companies that close for Christmas and give the workers the appropriate vacation pay but choose to defraud NIS by giving the workers lay-off certificates so that they can also claim unemployment benefits.
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@Caswell
Then there are some companies that close for Christmas and give the workers the appropriate vacation pay but choose to defraud NIS by giving the workers lay-off certificates so that they can also claim unemployment benefits.
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Interesting,and this happens right under the nose of the NHS, who are asking us to work past 65 , in order to build up the funds?
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David,
Such a Coalition still has some way to go before it would become a viable credible political outfit in Barbados, and some way to go before there is any serious talk by any person concerning its winning a general election in this country.
PDC
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Noted PDC.
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David
Last night the DLP members on the National Council of the NUPW made a valiant effort to cancel the march in support of the retrenched NCC Workers. However, in the end the supporters of the march prevailed 22 votes for; 6 against and 8 abstentions. Those opposing the march cited many reasons but their main reason was that the Minister of Labour wrote to the union requesting a meeting on January 12th, the day before the proposed march.
The attitude of the supporters was once bitten twice shy, recalling the big-footnote that Freundel played on them when he hastily arrange a Sunday meeting to catspradle the first march when he claimed that he was referring the matter to the ERT.
To cut a long story short the march is scheduled for January 13th at 9:30.
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Thanks Caswell, read the article in today’s Nation. Whether the minister wants to meet or not should not change the objective of the march to register their disgust at the state of the affairs it finds itself. A prime minister and his minions deliberately issuing a fair promise to NCC workers.
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Thanks for the update, Caswell.
Somehow in my running around, I thought I had heard that the march was cancelled and I said, wow the Dems got to Roslyn Smith. Little did I know that that was really true and that the dems in the NUPW actually tried to pull a big foot move.
Prior to the call for a march, why did the moron for a minister not see it fit to ask for a meeting? Did she not hear and see the pain and anguish on those ladies’ faces and the desperation of the men who turned up at the union recently?
See what we always say………..dems do not care about people or the country. Only about themselves and the DLP, the DLP party is paramount. People suffering and they only care about the DLP. What a bunch of selfish morons!
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Why would the union refer anything to the minister who is one of the more incompetent ministers? She has not solved not one matter that ever went before her. She should go back to medicine, she at least was good at that!
David Thompson realised that he had gotten a pig in a bag………….but then again, all he cared about was winning the government. For him, the ends justifies the means!
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Perhaps I’ve missed something, but lately I’ve been hearing reference in the media to the goodly Minister of Labour using a single barreled name.
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@Colonel
You don’t miss a trick.
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The IR climate is heating up in Barbados. The NUPW has approved a march on Tuesday to express itself about the ERT fiasco. Now the BUT and the BSTU plan to meet tomorrow to collaborate. We know Redman is not easy.
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@ Colonel Buggy January 10, 2015 at 10:27 PM.
Because she is divorced and plans to remarry (to dead dick Fumble, LoL!!).
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minister of labour Esther Byer is on the People’s Business.
She states that her meting is to give the NUPW a status update on the ERT.
ccb.bb
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millertheanunnaki January 11, 2015 at 10:30 AM #
@ Colonel Buggy January 10, 2015 at 10:27 PM.
Because she is divorced and plans to remarry (to dead dick Fumble, LoL!!).
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Man pull the other one! I saw that movie ,1963, starring Joyce Taylor and Mark Damon.
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So the NUPW’s march managed to attract 120 people. Not a lot when you consider it was in support of 200 ex-NCC workers. Not even the workers themselves could be bothered to turn up then.
I wonder what the numbers would have been like if the union had organised the march a year ago when the lay-offs happened.
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BU was of the view the NUPW intended to call out all workers to support to cause. Listening to these NCC workers is heartbreaking and an embarrassment as well.
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