No urgency in trying to deal with cases where workers terminated unlawfully: Felix Anthony

Fiji Trades Union Congress general secretary, Felix Anthony claims there seems to be no urgency in trying to deal with cases where workers were terminated unlawfully.

Mr Anthony made this allegation at the joint rally of The People’s Alliance (PA) and National Federation Party (NFP) at the Fijian Teachers Association Hall on Thursday.

Present at the rally were former staff members of the Water Authority of Fiji, Air Terminal Services and Fiji Airways.

These are workers who Mr Anthony was referring to. He claimed they were terminated unlawfully and are still awaiting justice.

“We need to have a Government that is going to be sincere, consider seriously the plight of workers, respect the international labour laws and act upon it,” Mr Anthony said.

“Unfortunately, we have had that for many years. It is time for us to look back and see where we stand. Workers’ rights can only be accessed in a real democracy.

“Democracy is not only about elections, it’s about respect for human and workers rights, that is what democratic governments do.

“In Fiji, we don’t have that today.” Mr Anthony claimed there was a backlog of cases where workers were terminated unlawfully.

“There are workers who love to be part of the trade union, but they are too scared to lose their job,” he said.

“When they lose their job, it will take them two to five years to get any form of justice. When justice is delayed, we can say that justice has been denied.”

He claimed that workers had been told “to keep their mouths shut even when something goes wrong because of fear of being terminated, that is not dignity at work”.

“This has to stop, you cannot be intimidating workers and be hoping that they will not speak out. That’s why we have Trade Unions,” he said.

“It’s our duty as leaders of Trade Unions

to speak up and to raise these issues and try to resolve them,” he said.

Trade Union involvement in politics

Mr Anthony claimed that during elections Trade Unions are told they cannot involve themselves in politics.

But, he said everything that involves workers was political.

“Everything that involves Trade Unions is politics,” he said.

“A labour law is politics, it’s said in Parliament. How can we not talk about the laws and the suffering of workers in this country?

“We as the Trade Union are not going to succumb and we are not going to be kept quiet by any legislation saying that we cannot be ourselves in politics.

“As I always say that keeping quiet is politics,” he said.

Attempts to get comment from Minister for Employment were unsuccessful by the time this edition went to the press.