Unions driven by self-interest in IDT redundancy row
ATTORNEY-AT-LAW GAVIN Goffe has dismissed concerns highlighted by trade union leaders that workers could be disenfranchised if they are unable to take redundancy disputes to the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT).
President of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU), Helene Davis Whyte, called on the Government, last Friday, to amend the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act to allow redundancy-related issues to be referred to the IDT for resolution.
In two separate judgments last year, the Supreme Court quashed rulings made by the IDT in relation to disputes about redundancies. The court stated that redundancy payouts did not constitute an industrial dispute as set out in the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act.
Goffe represented two companies that received Supreme Court judgments in their favour in 2020 over IDT rulings on redundancy payments. He charged that the unions were upset because they would no longer be able to earn from those redundancy cases in IDT hearings.
“The issue is that by saying that they can’t have those matters heard before the IDT, the effect of it is taking away money from the unions themselves, because they were essentially playing the role of lawyer before the IDT and getting paid to do so,” Goffe said in a Gleaner interview.
According to him, the employee could still get a lawyer and take the matter to court.
However, he noted that taking the matter to court, like any other civil case, would mean there was no certainty that a judgment would be handed down in favour of the worker.
Goffe said from the 1970s when the redundancy laws were passed, it has always been the courts that made judgments to determine whether an employee was entitled to redundancy payouts.
The attorney said that a “few years ago”, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security started referring redundancy matters to the IDT by calling them industrial disputes.
“Usually, the industrial disputes that go before the tribunal are things like unjustifiable dismissal or claims for better wages and terms and conditions – those are the two things that IDT does and they do it well.”
He reasoned that while there might be one of two lawyers at the IDT, there were many who had no legal training or any other qualification to preside over industrial disputes.“You don’t have to have any kind of professional or educational qualification,”he added.
UNCONSTITUTIONAL
“It is unconstitutional to take something that must be heard by judges and give it to lay people,” Goffe argued.
“An employer can’t bring a claim to the IDT against an employee, so that’s why they are pushing to give more power to the tribunal because the tribunal can only fire shots in one direction.”
Davis Whyte, the JCTU head, contended that the unions disagreed with the judgments handed down last year by the Supreme Court but noted that they were not involved in any of the cases and, as such, could not appeal the rulings.
According to the JCTU head, the court ruling had indicated that if lawmakers wanted matters relating to redundancy payment to be dealt with by the IDT, the law needed to be amended to state that explicitly.
“We took the view that the easiest way would be for the Ministry of Labour to take something to Parliament to have that amendment made to the act,” she said.
Labour and Social Security Minister Karl Samuda said on Friday that he was willing to meet with unions who were peeved over a ministry correspondence that it did not have jurisdiction to refer disputes in relation to redundancies to the IDT.
“I will make myself available for discussions with the unions at the earliest possible time,” he told The Gleaner.
The ministry stated in a letter dated January 22, 2021 to a union representative that the IDT also had no jurisdiction to hear such disputes.
Opposition Senator Lambert Brown and government counterpart Kavan Gayle, who are both trade unionists, both slammed the ministry for pushing “anti-worker policy”.