Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

In a fi­nal court judg­ment, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has been or­dered to pay more than $4 mil­lion to 13 for­mer con­tract work­ers it fired af­ter the 2021 THA elec­tions.

The or­der was de­liv­ered by the In­dus­tri­al Court on Mon­day and the com­pen­sa­tion is to be paid on or be­fore Sep­tem­ber 30.

Each work­er is to re­ceive a pack­age cov­er­ing out­stand­ing va­ca­tion leave, pay­ment for the re­main­der of their con­tracts, and pro-rat­ed gra­tu­ity for time served un­der their last con­tract.

The com­pen­sa­tion ranged from just over $151,000 to near­ly $400,000, de­pend­ing on each work­er’s po­si­tion, salary, and time left on their con­tract.

The fi­nal to­tal comes to $4,017,507.61.

The rul­ing fol­lows the Court’s April 30 judg­ment, which found that the work­ers’ dis­missals were “harsh and op­pres­sive and con­trary to the prin­ci­ples and prac­tices of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions.”

That April 30 rul­ing out­lined sev­er­al key fail­ings in the THA’s han­dling of the ter­mi­na­tions. The court said the THA did not pro­vide cred­i­ble doc­u­men­ta­tion to sup­port its claim that the Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ship Unit (CPU) was shut down as part of a re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise.

No pol­i­cy doc­u­ments, meet­ing min­utes, or re­vised or­gan­i­sa­tion­al charts were sub­mit­ted. It al­so high­light­ed in­con­sis­ten­cies in the THA’s ex­pla­na­tion. While the dis­missal let­ters said the CPU was “un­der re­view,” in court the THA ar­gued that the unit had al­ready been abol­ished. A key meet­ing ref­er­enced in the let­ters was found not to have oc­curred.

Twelve of the work­ers re­ceived ter­mi­na­tion let­ters on March 31, 2022. One work­er, Dion Win­ches­ter, was dis­missed on April 8, 2022.

The work­ers were all part of the CPU with­in the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary. Some had been em­ployed since 2009. The po­si­tions in­clud­ed field part­ner­ship of­fi­cers, in­ves­ti­ga­tion and as­sess­ment of­fi­cers, and ad­min­is­tra­tive sup­port.

The court not­ed that the work­ers had be­tween nine and 33 months re­main­ing on their con­tracts. It found no ev­i­dence that they were paid their out­stand­ing va­ca­tion leave and said there was no gen­uine at­tempt by the THA to re­as­sign them else­where with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion. It al­so point­ed out that the dis­missals were not pre­ced­ed by any mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion.

The Ad­vo­cate Trade Union, which rep­re­sent­ed the work­ers, filed its com­pen­sa­tion com­pu­ta­tions on May 7. The THA did not file any ob­jec­tions or coun­ter­claims.

The court said: “The Court is sat­is­fied, there­fore, that it can pro­ceed to give its fi­nal or­der in these dis­putes since a no­tice of Ap­peal does not con­sti­tute an au­to­mat­ic stay of ex­e­cu­tion.”

Al­though the THA filed a no­tice of ap­peal on June 5, the court not­ed that it had not ap­plied for a stay of its April 30 judg­ment.

Speak­ing ear­li­er in May, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said: “We start­ed the ap­peal process since last week and we are con­fi­dent that this rul­ing will be over­turned.”

How­ev­er, un­less the Court of Ap­peal grants a stay or rules oth­er­wise, the THA is legal­ly bound to pay all 13 work­ers in full by the Sep­tem­ber dead­line.