Termination notices stay

JUDGE: WORKERS CAN CHALLENGE DISMISSAL

THE High Court has refused to order Air Terminal Services (ATS) to withdraw termination notices issued to 200 of its employees in June.

However, High Court judge Justice Javed Mansoor declined to say whether the terminations were lawful, saying the workers had “appropriate mechanisms in the law” to challenge them.

The workers’ union, the Federated Airlines Staff Association, had sued ATS in a court action filed soon after the terminations were issued.

The union’s court case sought a ruling on different points of law as ATS advertised for new employees on June 27 — eight days after issuing notices of termination to the affected association members.

Justice Mansoor ruled that terminating the employment of union members would not terminate a collective agreement between the employer and the members’ union. He also ruled that workers could not be terminated because of their union membership. Justice Mansoor said some facts in the case were still in dispute, meaning that he could not rule on them until the evidence was heard.

THE Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) has commenced the consultation process on the proposed redundancies of 83 border control officers based at the Nadi International Airport, with a severance package of one weeks’ pay for every year of service.

In a letter to the Fiji Public Service Association on Monday, acting chief executive officer Fane Vave said FRCS had faced several financial difficulties after facing a $10 million budget cut in the 2020-2021 National Budget.

When contacted, Ms Vave yesterday acknowledged receiving a list of questions from this newspaper, but she said FRCS would respond soon.

“Over the last few months, the Fiji Revenue and Customs Service has undergone numerous cost-cutting strategies in an attempt to reduce the operational costs, such as cease of all acting allowances, ceased recruitments; reduced travelling cost; reduced training cost; disestablished vacant roles; encouraged time-off instead of overtime payment and downgrading executives medical insurance plan, before considering the option of redundancy,” she said in the letter.

According to the letter, the 83 staff members worked three shifts at the Nadi International Airport before the borders were closed.

“Since the borders closed, Fiji Revenue and Customs Service has provided alternate work for the primary line officers at various divisions within the organisation with the hope of borders opening within eight (8) months.

“However, due to financial constraints, the organisation is not in a position to continue providing work to the primary line officers as there has been a 99 per cent drop in passenger movement and their core role being passenger and tourist VAT refunds processing.”

Ms Vave said consultations with the affected staff members began on October 9.

“The service has made a decision to choose the most viable option which is redundancy providing a severance package of one weeks’ pay for every year of service.”

The letter said the process of termination of employment by redundancy would begin through November 30, 2020 with a seven day appeals period and “if redundancy is to be implemented” the last day of employment with FRCS would be December 30, 2020 “which is after the expiry of thirty (30) consecutive days from the date of their first notice letter”.