Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol Mc Leod says the protest ac­tion by work­ers of the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the sick­out by Caribbean Air­lines pi­lots was il­le­gal.Mc Leod made the com­ment dur­ing yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing, in re­sponse to ques­tions on the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion-led in­dus­tri­al ac­tion at pass­port of­fices in Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do and the CAL sick­out ear­li­er this week, which dis­rupt­ed ser­vice and caused in­con­ve­nience to the gen­er­al pub­lic.Mc Leod said the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act (IRA) "iden­ti­fies par­tic­u­lar op­er­a­tions in the na­tion­al econ­o­my as be­ing es­sen­tial ser­vice and es­sen­tial in­dus­tries."

With­out nam­ing the spe­cif­ic in­dus­tries, Mc Leod said there was a pro­ce­dure that ought to be fol­lowed in the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process and in oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safe­ty pro­ce­dures. Ac­tion tak­en out­side of those pro­ce­dures "would be iden­ti­fied as il­le­gal ac­tion," he said.Asked if the spe­cif­ic ac­tion tak­en by the PSA mem­bers was il­le­gal, Mc Leod, a for­mer pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU), said: "It is il­le­gal."Asked what spe­cif­ic ac­tion could be tak­en against the work­ers for their al­leged il­le­gal ac­tion, Mc Leod said the law was clear on that is­sue. He said the man­age­ment of the or­gan­i­sa­tions and unions would be fa­mil­iar with the ac­tions they could take in such cir­cum­stances.

In fact, McLeod said man­age­ment at CAL and the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion were tak­ing ac­tion in re­spect of the protests and it would be the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the man­age­ment or the union to take ac­tion as a con­se­quence of any breach of the IRA.Mc Leod al­so re­fused to re­spond to threats by PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke that he would force an ear­ly gen­er­al elec­tion if any dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion were to be tak­en against the work­ers who en­gaged in the ac­tion.In re­sponse to an­oth­er ques­tion about an im­mi­nent labour un­rest in the coun­try, Mc Leod said he would ad­vise trade unions and their mem­bers to pay at­ten­tion to the pro­vi­sions of the law.