The Joint Trade Union Move­ment says there will be dark days ahead af­ter pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court, Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix, was told her con­tract, which ends to­day, will not be re­newed.

Thomas-Fe­lix was re­port­ed­ly tele­phoned while still abroad on of­fi­cial du­ty on Mon­day and told of the de­ci­sion, the union said.

Mem­bers of the labour move­ment yes­ter­day vis­it­ed Pres­i­dent’s House to de­liv­er a let­ter call­ing on Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo to re­think her de­ci­sion.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the Pres­i­dent’s House for a com­ment on the is­sue, but none was forth­com­ing. Mes­sages to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for com­ment on the mat­ter al­so went unan­swered.

The unions’ let­ter read: “The man­ner in which the de­ci­sion not to re­new Her Ho­n­our’s con­tract, giv­en that Her Ho­n­our was out of the ju­ris­dic­tion, and that she was in­formed just two days be­fore the ex­pi­ra­tion of her con­tract, runs con­trary to every tenet of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions prin­ci­ples and prac­tice.”

It added: “It would seem as though the coun­try’s cus­to­di­an of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions prac­tice, the pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court, has her­self be­come a vic­tim of a de­ci­sion that was harsh, op­pres­sive and con­trary to the prin­ci­ples and prac­tice of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions. This ap­proach will cer­tain­ly tar­nish the in­ter­na­tion­al im­age of our coun­try by this dis­re­spect­ful treat­ment of both the In­dus­tri­al Court and a woman in high of­fice.”

Speak­ing with the me­dia af­ter de­liv­er­ing the let­ter, JTUM pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get said Thomas-Fe­lix’s re­moval will cause dark days ahead.

“We do not want to re­turn to those dark days where work­ing peo­ple had ab­solute­ly no con­fi­dence in the In­dus­tri­al Court to dis­pense fair­ness and eq­ui­ty and jus­tice for work­ers in this coun­try. You can ar­gue that we still have not reached that point, but at the same time, at least we had some­one in charge of the court who we re­spect, who is well re­spect­ed both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.”

Ro­get high­light­ed that Thomas-Fe­lix is one of 20 peo­ple in the world who was ap­point­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion (ILO) as a Mem­ber of the Com­mit­tee of Ex­perts on the Ap­pli­ca­tion of Con­ven­tions and Rec­om­men­da­tions.

The union heads said Thomas-Fe­lix, who was ap­point­ed In­dus­tri­al Court pres­i­dent in 2011, was in­formed of her non-re­new­al while in Gene­va ad­dress­ing an ILO mat­ter. Both Ro­get and Michael An­nisette, leader of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC), said the non-re­new­al was a blow to the coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al im­age.

“We will be em­bar­rassed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly as a coun­try not on­ly for the de­ci­sion, but the way in which the de­ci­sion was tak­en and com­mu­ni­cat­ed and the dis­re­spect for women hold­ing high of­fice in this coun­try,” Ro­get said.

Ro­get said there was al­so a per­cep­tion that the non-re­new­al of her con­tract was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed. He said if the de­ci­sion by the Pres­i­dent is re­scind­ed, it will boost con­fi­dence in the pop­u­la­tion that there re­main in­de­pen­dent bod­ies in the coun­try.

Asked if he be­lieved Thomas-Fe­lix’s re­moval was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed, Ro­get said, “What we are try­ing to pre­vent, the res­o­nance through­out the coun­try with that par­tic­u­lar per­cep­tion, that per­cep­tion is al­ready wide­ly held, and this lends to that per­cep­tion and there­fore we are say­ing that in the ab­sence of good rea­son­ing to do this, it re­al­ly, re­al­ly would not sit well with the stake­hold­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly us in the trade unions.”

Ro­get point­ed out that Thomas-Fe­lix was not one who al­ways de­liv­ered judg­ments that were in their favour, but said she re­mained re­spect­ed by them as be­ing fair and open to di­a­logue be­tween op­pos­ing par­ties.

An­nisette en­cour­aged Thomas-Fe­lix to “hold her head up”, adding that the an­ces­tors and God is with her. With the le­gal acu­men pos­sessed by Thomas-Fe­lix, he said, the coun­try will be viewed in a neg­a­tive light for her re­moval and the man­ner in which it was done.

“The is­sue to us is whether or not the pres­i­dent of an In­dus­tri­al Court, who has 12 years’ ser­vice, un­de­ni­able pro­fes­sion­al ser­vice, should be re­duced to what she has been re­duced to, to a tele­phone call two days be­fore the ex­piry of her con­tract.”

He added, “We are call­ing on the Pres­i­dent and Chief Jus­tice to jus­ti­fy that de­ci­sion. We are call­ing them out in pub­lic. There can­not be no deny­ing that Thomas-Fe­lix, is an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned ex­po­nent of in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and oth­er mat­ters.”

JTUM’s let­ter said the is­sue was the im­pact on the fu­ture of the In­dus­tri­al Court. It said the trade union move­ment recog­nised the crit­i­cal role of the In­dus­tri­al Court, par­tic­u­lar­ly “its con­tri­bu­tion to dis­pens­ing jus­tice and eq­ui­ty for work­ers and as a con­se­quence, the main­te­nance of in­dus­tri­al peace and sta­bil­i­ty in the coun­try.”

Thomas-Fe­lix, An­nisette said, served with dis­tinc­tion and should not have been dis­missed in the way she was.

He, too, be­lieved there was some po­lit­i­cal mis­chief in­volved, and ques­tioned if the Gov­ern­ment’s four per cent wage of­fer would be re­ject­ed by her “in­de­pen­dent think­ing” and there­fore she need­ed to be re­moved.

“We say to her ho­n­our Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix, stay strong. Stand strong. Be a proud black woman. Don’t let that de­ci­sion de­ter you from what the heav­en­ly fa­ther would have man­dat­ed for you to fol­low, and I say you will be pro­tect­ed by our an­ces­tors.”

Some key rul­ings of Thomas-Fe­lix

While her tenure as pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court could not be de­scribed as over­ly con­tro­ver­sial, there were some rul­ings and sit­u­a­tions in­volv­ing Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix that caught the at­ten­tion of the pub­lic.

One such event took place in De­cem­ber 2016, when Thomas-Fe­lix sum­moned the CEO of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce and the cham­ber it­self on a mat­ter of con­tempt of court.

Then CEO Gabriel Faria, the cham­ber and two oth­er men were is­sued with sum­mons to ap­pear be­fore the court on the charges, which arose out of state­ments made by busi­ness­man Frank Mout­tet.

At the time, Mout­tet said the In­dus­tri­al Court was to be blamed for de­creased lev­els of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the coun­try, which was mak­ing it in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult for em­ploy­ers to ter­mi­nate work­ers.

An­oth­er note­wor­thy court rul­ing from Thomas-Fe­lix came on De­cem­ber 18, 2021.

In an oral judg­ment, Thomas-Fe­lix ruled that the OSH Agency was guilty of an in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fence and trade dis­pute which in­volved an Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency’s (OS­HA) re­tire­ment pol­i­cy that was not dis­cussed with the Bank­ing and In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union(BIG­WU)

“The be­hav­iour of the agency to uni­lat­er­al­ly in­tro­duce a re­tire­ment pol­i­cy with­out any dis­cus­sion or agree­ment with the recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union was harsh and op­pres­sive and con­trary to good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions prac­tices,” Thomas-Fe­lix said

That same year, but three months pri­or, Thomas-Fe­lix said a manda­to­ry COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion pol­i­cy could not be in­tro­duced uni­lat­er­al­ly as a new term of em­ploy­ment for ex­ist­ing em­ploy­ees with­out dis­cus­sion and con­sul­ta­tion.

She made the con­tentious state­ment in her ad­dress at the for­mal open­ing of the 2021/2022 law term.

In a state­ment, the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM), Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC), and the Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions and NGOs (FI­TUN), said then that they im­me­di­ate­ly aligned with the pres­i­dent’s state­ment on the need for “gen­uine so­cial di­a­logue.”