Tribunal to ‘soon’ hear cases again

The Ministry of Labour is assuring Barbadians that the Employment Rights Tribunal (ERT) will soon begin hearing cases again, but trade unionist Caswell Franklyn says there must be a revamp of the body if it is to be effective.

The tribunal has been on a hiatus since last December and without a chairman for more than two years.

“The Cabinet of Barbados has approved the appointment of the Employment Rights Tribunal (ERT) for a period of three years with effect from April 14, 2025. As specified in the Employment Rights Act, 2012-9 the members of the ERT are required to be sworn in and this will be done shortly. Thereafter, the ERT will begin to hear cases. With the appointment of a fulltime Chairman and two deputies, it is envisaged that there will be significant progress in addressing the backlog of cases,” Permanent Secretary Marva Howell said yesterday.

Review

“The move to a full-time tribunal system required some additional review of existing arrangements and the establishment of some new arrangements.”

Last year, Minister of Labour Colin Jordan revealed that Government was considering putting two permanent panels in place and having the tribunal operate on a full-time basis as the position of Chairman was voluntary and the positions of the two deputies were part-time. Franklyn, Head of the Unity Workers Union (UWU), agreed with the full-time status but wondered when this would come to fruition.

“Colin Jordan had promised in September last year that we’re going to have a fulltime thing, and then September passed, he said by the end of December. Now, this is May and we ain’t get anything. There is no tribunal in place. So people who have been unfairly dismissed cannot get their matters heard.

“It would appear that the Government is not interested in the plight of workers, they’re more interested in gimmicks and always pushing things to help the employers,” Franklyn said.

The tribunal is made up of a chairman, two deputy chairs, who are attorneys, three people nominated by employers and three nominated by trade unions.

“But the Minister appoints everybody. So far, I understand that the unions and the employers might have submitted the names that they want, but the minister has not acted on them and he has not identified the chairman or the other lawyers because Chris Blackman (retired judge and former chairman) has resigned and Omari Drakes, who was a deputy chair has been promoted at his law firm. He is a very great young man and he’s a loss to the tribunal,” Franklyn said.

Franklyn pointed out that the other deputy chair, Kathy Hamblin, “was the only one that was on any cases for the last six months of last year”.

The trade union boss believes that in order to attract dedicated personnel the positions must be full-time, noting that the Chairman was a volunteer and all of the people on the tribunal were paid a stipend.

Pittance

“So, they need to change that. They need to make the Tribunal a permanent, full-time entity. Get rid of the employers’ nominee, get rid of the workers’ nominee and have people who understand the law. You can then have three lawyers to form a Tribunal, if you want to because you find that the lawyers on the Tribunal really do the work and the other people concur.

“They really need to make it full-time because nobody’s going to come and do that level of work that calls for a lot of legal research and all kind of thing. Nobody’s going to do that for that pittance. These are lawyers who have their own practice so they can only do these cases when they have time off, or when they’re available because if you have a case going on in the court and the judge calls you, you can’t come to the tribunal, you have to go to the judge. So, you need people who are not engaged elsewhere and you’ve got to pay them properly. Because providing justice for the people is not cheap.”

In terms of the ongoing complaint that the ERT did not have the teeth to enforce its rulings and that some employers did not abide by the rulings, Franklyn stated: “All I heard them talking about sometimes is that the Employment Rights Act was too onerous on the employers. That is a joke, because all the Act is saying is that you have to do a fair procedure. So the courts have decided that if you don’t go through a fair procedure, there’s no question of unfair dismissal anymore, because you should have done the right thing. So, I don’t understand why anybody, even unions, are supporting that position.”

Even more disturbing to the UWU boss was the growing backlog of cases said to be hundreds and the lack of a permanent home for the tribunal. “People are suffering. People are waiting for cases to be heard. You have people who have been dismissed for years,” he lamented.

New home

While the Minister of Labour did not respond to this newspaper’s request for a comment, last month while addressing the Police Service Annual Conference, Attorney General Dale Marshall, said about what he called “hundreds of cases that remain choked in the non-functioning Employment Rights Tribunal (ERT)”.

He said a new home had been identified for the tribunal at the Henry Forde and David Simmons Judicial Complex.

“There have been moves to amend the legislation governing the ERT’s operation. Though there has been pushback from the Ministry of Labour against the view that the Government was bending to pressure from the private sector, it was the Barbados Employers’ Confederation that complained the Employment Rights Act was too heavily tilted in favour of employees.

“The ERT has also faced other challenges that have contributed to the delays, with some cases in the system for more than a decade. This is problematic given the reason why the ERT was established.” (MB)

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