Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The In­dus­tri­al Court has dis­missed le­gal ac­tion tak­en by Caribbean Air­lines Ltd (CAL) against the T&T Air­line Pi­lots As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA) for al­leged­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ing a sick-out protest by pi­lots in 2023.

On Thurs­day, In­dus­tri­al Court Judges Michelle Austin and An­drew Stroude found that they did not have the ju­ris­dic­tion to hear CAL’s com­plaint.

Austin, who de­liv­ered the de­ci­sion, ruled that CAL’s ac­tion un­der Sec­tion 67(2) of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act (IRA) should have been pur­sued as a sum­ma­ry of­fence be­fore a mag­is­trate in­stead of as an in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fence be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court.

The leg­is­la­tion makes it an of­fence for an em­ploy­er, work­er or trade union en­gaged in an es­sen­tial ser­vice to en­gage in in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

The max­i­mum penal­ty up­on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion for an em­ploy­er is a $40,000 fine and three years’ im­pris­on­ment, while work­ers face a $1,000 fine and six months in prison.

Trade unions face a $20,000 fine and can­cel­la­tion of their cer­tifi­cate of recog­ni­tion per­mit­ting it to con­tin­ue to rep­re­sent the work­ers.

“The Court is of the firm view that the in­vo­ca­tion of Sec­tion 67 ush­ers this mat­ter out­side its purview and the cor­rect pro­ce­dure is that this com­plaint should have been re­ferred to the Mag­is­trate’s Court by ad­vice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP),” Austin said.

Not­ing that CAL sole­ly sought to re­ly on the seg­ment of the leg­is­la­tion, Austin stat­ed that she and her col­league would have on­ly been per­mit­ted to con­tin­ue to hear it if CAL had cit­ed oth­er seg­ments deal­ing with in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fences for sim­i­lar con­duct.

She al­so point­ed out that an amend­ment to its com­plaint can­not cure the de­fect in it.

“The is­sue is not whether the as­so­ci­a­tion was mis­led or prej­u­diced, but whether the court was ever prop­er­ly seized of the mat­ter in the first place,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that CAL can­not now pur­sue the com­plaint be­fore a mag­is­trate as the six-month lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od for do­ing so af­ter the pro­hib­it­ed con­duct al­leged­ly oc­curred has long ex­pired.

The case re­lat­ed to an in­ci­dent which oc­curred be­tween Au­gust 20 and 21, 2023 while CAL and TTAL­PA were locked in wage ne­go­ti­a­tions.

CAL re­port­ed­ly re­ceived calls from 75 pi­lots in­di­cat­ing that they were un­well and un­able to re­port for du­ty. The calls came around three hours be­fore they were sched­uled to fly.

The State-owned air­line was forced to can­cel al­most three dozen do­mes­tic, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al flights due to “cock­pit crew con­straints”.

Al­though TTAL­PA de­nied that its mem­bers were en­gag­ing in il­le­gal protest ac­tion, CAL suc­cess­ful­ly ob­tained an in­junc­tion from the In­dus­tri­al Court bar­ring its mem­bers from en­gag­ing in in­dus­tri­al ac­tion in­clud­ing “call­ing in sick en masse”.

In De­cem­ber 2024, CAL and TTAL­PA signed a col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment for the pe­ri­od be­tween 2015 and 2020, in­clu­sive of a four per cent wage hike.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact the com­pa­ny to see if it planned to ap­peal the de­ci­sion or dis­con­tin­ue its le­gal dis­pute over the is­sue. How­ev­er, CAL did not re­spond up to press time.

For­mer In­dus­tri­al Court Judge Lawrence Achong was a mem­ber of the pan­el but demit­ted of­fice be­fore the rul­ing could be de­liv­ered. In such cir­cum­stances, the IRA per­mits the re­main­ing mem­bers of the pan­el to pre­side and com­plete the case.

CAL was rep­re­sent­ed by Derek Ali, Vanes­sa Gopaul and Mar­celle Fer­di­nand. TTAL­PA was rep­re­sent­ed by Dou­glas Mendes, SC and Clay Hack­ett and the Of­fice of the AG by Seenath Jairam.