KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) is prepar­ing to take the dis­missal of 42 dai­ly-paid work­ers by the South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) to the In­dus­tri­al Court af­ter a meet­ing at the Min­istry of Labour failed to re­solve the dis­pute yes­ter­day.

NUGFW pres­i­dent-gen­er­al Christo­pher Streete said the union re­quest­ed an un­re­solved cer­tifi­cate af­ter an SWRHA rep­re­sen­ta­tive at­tend­ed the meet­ing at the min­istry’s St James Street of­fice in San Fer­nan­do but said he had no in­struc­tions on how to pro­ceed.

Streete ex­pects the cer­tifi­cate to be is­sued this week. It will al­low the union to for­mal­ly take the mat­ter to the In­dus­tri­al Court.

“The work­ers were ter­mi­nat­ed in our view, not in ac­cor­dance with the law, not in ac­cor­dance with the pro­ce­dure,” Streete told Guardian Me­dia.

The dis­pute con­cerns 42 work­ers dis­missed by the SWRHA af­ter the au­thor­i­ty ini­tial­ly is­sued ter­mi­na­tion let­ters to 124 dai­ly-paid em­ploy­ees in Oc­to­ber.

The ini­tial no­tices prompt­ed the union to in­ter­vene. The work­ers were then as­sured the let­ters would be with­drawn and were in­struct­ed to re­turn to work. How­ev­er, 42 were sub­se­quent­ly dis­missed.

The af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees are part of the NUGFW’s bar­gain­ing unit. They worked main­ly at San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, al­though some were as­signed to health cen­tres un­der the re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ty.

Their du­ties in­clud­ed clean­ing hos­pi­tal fa­cil­i­ties, gen­er­al main­te­nance and dis­pos­ing of haz­ardous waste, among oth­er an­cil­lary ser­vices.

Streete said the union’s ob­jec­tion was not sim­ply to the work­ers’ ter­mi­na­tion, but al­so to the pro­ce­dure fol­lowed by the au­thor­i­ty.

He said the col­lec­tive agree­ment and ap­plic­a­ble in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions pro­ce­dures re­quired an em­ploy­er ter­mi­nat­ing five or more work­ers to en­gage the recog­nised union and re­port the mat­ter to the Min­istry of Labour.

“That wasn’t done,” he said.

The SWRHA has main­tained that the af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees were ca­su­al work­ers. Streete dis­put­ed that clas­si­fi­ca­tion, say­ing sev­er­al had re­port­ed for du­ty dai­ly for more than a year.

“They claim that they are ca­su­al work­ers, but these are peo­ple who, for more than a year, a year plus, would have been re­port­ing for du­ty on a dai­ly ba­sis.”

Streete said the work­ers should not be con­sid­ered ca­su­al em­ploy­ees in the tra­di­tion­al sense, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the on­go­ing need for their ser­vices in the hos­pi­tal sys­tem.

The union had tried to arrange bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions with the SWRHA be­fore re­port­ing the mat­ter to the Min­istry of Labour and the In­dus­tri­al Court, but Streete said those dis­cus­sions did not take place.

He said the union had ini­tial­ly ex­pect­ed the min­istry meet­ing to be held on Mon­day, but re­ceived the no­ti­fi­ca­tion late, and it was resched­uled for yes­ter­day. Streete said the SWRHA rep­re­sen­ta­tive’s in­abil­i­ty to say how the au­thor­i­ty in­tend­ed to ad­dress the dis­pute was dis­ap­point­ing.

“It shows bad faith.”

Streete said the union had no rea­son to pro­long dis­cus­sions when the au­thor­i­ty’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive could not in­di­cate what steps man­age­ment was pre­pared to take. With the mat­ter un­re­solved at the min­istry, the union will pro­ceed to the next stage un­der the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act.

The union in­tends to chal­lenge the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the work­ers’ ter­mi­na­tion and seek re­dress on their be­half at the In­dus­tri­al Court.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the SWRHA for com­ment and is await­ing a re­sponse.