THOMAS-FELIX AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE

So they finally get rid of the little black girl from Mayaro who was bold face enough to threaten the Chamber hotshots with contempt of court; who took seriously her charge to ensure that in her Court the principles and practices of “good industrial relations” were observed and who resisted political pressure.

The Industrial Court, in a period where the trade unions have lost credibility and have been utterly gutted by the state, at least ensured that non-unionised workers may have got a modicum of remedy. 

Judges of the Industrial Court are appointed by the government on fixed-term contracts, while the President of the court is appointed by the President of the country after consultation with the Chief Justice (both of whom owe their appointments to politicians). 

Judges of the Industrial Court have no security of tenure and the renewal of their contracts is up to the politicians. And we know that politicians do not necessarily operate in the interests of working people. The trade union movement has always agitated for the judges to have security of tenure and for the politicians to have no say in their appointment. 

This has been so for fifty-nine years since the establishment of the Court in 1965. This puts enormous pressure on these judges when issues that the government deems critical come up for adjudication. This has always been of major concern, particularly as some of the judges may be members of or have close connections with the ruling party of the time. 

Some have been members of parliament, government ministers and leading office holders in political parties. Just like in state and judicial institutions, the court is said to be wracked by political jostling and infighting. What part of the judiciary isn’t? 

Some of the judges, who while they may be lawyers, have no background in industrial relations and attempt to operate as if they were in the magistrates’ court.

The Chairman of the Essential Services Division of the Industrial Court is also the chairman of the Special Tribunal. He is a former Minister of Labour. Matters dealing with public sector workers and workers in the so-called essential service sector (T&TEC, WASA, RHAs, etc.) are presided over by the President of the Essential Services Division and the Special Tribunal. We all know that the Special Tribunal doubled down on the government’s 4% over six years’ position.

The politicians have an overwhelming influence on the Essential Services/ Special Tribunal deliberations because the unions involved are prohibited legally from striking. The Special Tribunal can award a five-year duration of agreement instead of the usual three-year bilaterally negotiated settlement. The major public sector unions have been hamstrung and out-manoeuvred by the government with its post-2014 wage freeze and 4% over six years.  Deborah Thomas-Felix was viewed as the obstacle to putting the Essential Services Division under heavy manners, particularly in matters on which she sat.

Private sector negotiations, of course have begun to follow the path blazed by the State. These negotiations are primarily with larger companies and conglomerates and, so far, many have been settled in this round. The Court, deals with as much as ninety percent of its cases coming from the non-unionised sector, what is called off-the-street matters.

The employers are smelling blood. They have the state in grip. The trade unions are toothless tigers. Now is the time to strike and strip labour costs to the bone, including removing the little sliver of remedy that the court offered, although the Industrial Relations Act which governs its operation was enacted to subvert the power of the working class and the trade unions.

In 2018 Chamber and conglomerate heads held a meeting where they laid out their approach to deepen their assault on the working class. The gutting of the Industrial Court was a major objective in their assault. To achieve this, Thomas-Felix had to go. This meeting took place before Covid struck. What is their beef with the Industrial Court? 

The Industrial Court is the linchpin of an industrial relations system which the employers no longer deem necessary to advance their class interests. In their view it has served their interests for close to sixty years, but with the balance of class forces shifting in their favour, they are seeking to get rid of the little remedy that the Industrial Court offers to, mainly, non-unionised workers.

• The objective is to maximise their profits by minimising their labour costs; by demoralising their workforce through retrenchment, wage suppression and the cutting back of hard won benefits. 

• They want to have the freedom to make maximum use of multiskilling and to be able to write job descriptions that are open to manipulation. The employers have come up with a strategy that involves further weakening the unions while ensuring that non-unionised workers know and stay in their place. 

• They want to remove the provision in law that says that a worker, whether previously unionised or not, must be represented by a union in the Industrial Court.

• They want to have the right to examine unions’ financial status (the books) when unions make applications for recognition.

• They are against domestic workers being treated like “workers” under the law, despite the government pretending to support ILO Recommendation 189 and promising to enable it through legislation.

• They want unions to pay costs in matters that employers win in the Industrial Court.

• They are against workers who have been unjustly dismissed being re-instated.

• They want to be able to retrench so-called “contract workers” at will.

• They want to cut back on leave provisions in collective agreements.

• They have developed legal mechanisms to delay and frustrate the already long drawn out process of recognition which they developed to frustrate the RBC recognition struggle by BIGWU.

• They want restrictions on appeals against industrial court judgements to be removed.

They have utilised a battery of lawyers to make an already over-burdened system moreso, dragging out matters, frustrating workers’ matters for years and putting pressure on union finances.

Deborah Thomas-Felix was seen by the conglomerate sawatees as a stumbling block because of her insistence on basing her jurisprudence on the principles and practice of “good industrial relations”, which is a tool not in the toolkit of these modern Plantation Massas.

The Chamber big shots viciously attacked the court over the 5% interim increase the court awarded to Petrotrin workers in the 2014/2017 negotiations. This led to the President of the Court warning these entitled modern estate overseers that they may be in contempt of Court. They backed down then.

She fell afoul of the Rowley Administration when she insisted that proper procedure be followed in the Petrotrin debacle. She was seen by the Rowley administration as delaying the issues involved and was the subject of much opprobrium in PNM circles.

There are major sensitive issues which were scheduled to go before the President of the Industrial Court – matters which the Government is concerned about. These include the illegal interference by the Minister of Finance in preventing the management of the National Insurance Board from implementing the collective agreement negotiated bilaterally between NIB and the PSA. 

The collective agreement was registered in the Industrial Court and thus became a legally binding instrument. Yet the workers have been denied, by the Finance Minister, the benefits of that agreement. We shall see how this matter be treated now that Thomas-Felix has been removed.

Another important issue that was before the panel chaired by Thomas-Felix is the NP/OWTU collective agreement. This issue has been part-heard. Now that she has been removed, it would be interesting to see how the new President handles the matter: whether the Coram be scrapped and a new one set up or whether the matter will go on with the two remaining judges.

Thomas-Felix became the object of attack by members of her own disunited, conflicted profession, both within and outside the industrial court: many singing for their supper from the employers, when she insisted that workers could not be disciplined for refusing to be vaccinated. Of course the anger coming from the employers was focused on her.

She stated: “The pandemic ought not to be used as an excuse to flout the principles and practices of good industrial relations, to flout labour standards and to flout the laws of this country. 

The jurisprudence of this Court is very consistent on the issue of the unilateral imposition of new terms of employment and the unilateral variation of the existing terms of contracts of employment. It is settled law, that is, it is unlawful for an employer to unilaterally alter the existing terms and conditions of employment of workers…”

So here she stood with the merchant elites, government operatives and milk the cow attorneys arrayed against her. The employers are attempting to bypass the very industrial relations regulations they set up to keep the workers under control and Thomas-Felix was seen as an obstacle in their quest to remove all protections won over the years through workers’ struggles. 

In other words, she was not playing ball. The point is that this action must not just be seen as an attack on an individual, but it is a key plank in a campaign launched by the employers five years ago to remove what little protection workers have. Thomas-Felix was seen as a stumbling block and had to be removed.

What the one percent and the ruling party do not understand is that the gutting of the Industrial Court and the introduction of legislation to further the interests of the business and political elites will have the effect of shifting the workers’ struggles for economic security back to the workplace and the streets and away from the board room and the court,

Instead of ensuring dominance over their workers, it will lead to an intensification of the class struggle, which will not be restricted to industrial relations issues, but will involve the question of the quality of life and, inevitably, to the question of how power is exercised; who exercises it and in whose interest it is exercised. Talk about biting off more than they can chew!

12 Mar 2024