Trade unionist claims NUPW president bypassed process in taking his case to High Court

The Supreme Court should have kicked out the injunction filed by embattled president of the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) Akanni McDowall, who has been accused of jumping the gun by appealing his suspension in the law courts.

That is according to veteran trade unionist Senator Caswell Franklyn, who has contended that by not appealing his suspension to the NUPW’s membership first, McDowall accepted the disciplinary action handed to him by the NUPW’s National Council.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Franklyn said the court could not now make a ruling because McDowall had skipped a critical step.

McDowall had his membership suspended on June 23, the day before nominations for the NUPW’s general elections were to be held. As a result he could not contest the elections.

Last Wednesday, McDowall filed an injunction in the Supreme Court to have the July 16 elections postponed and his suspension lifted.

In his ruling later that night, Justice Cecil McCarthy ordered the NUPW to delay its elections. He indicated he would deliver his decision on McDowall’s suspension in a week.

But Franklyn, the general secretary of the Unity Workers’ Union, has maintained the embattled NUPW president should only be able to seek redress in court as a secondary option.

“The rules of the NUPW provide that if you are expelled, suspended, you can appeal to the general meeting of members. Akanni has not appealed to the general meeting so the law would assume that he has accepted the decision, whether rightly or wrongly, so he can’t go to court to substitute itself for the general meeting of the NUPW members. The court just simply cannot do it…The court should have kicked it out and told him he was in the wrong place. It should not have entertained him,” Franklyn maintained.

“The court cannot rule on that matter until the members have dealt with it. The NUPW rules are not just there to have rules. Those rules were made under the provisions of the Trade Union Act and they gave the members power to make those rules. When you join the union you sign on to accept the rules and to be governed by them.

“If the court was to rule that the suspension had to be lifted, it would have overstepped its bounds because the people to determine that are the general meeting of members of NUPW, not the court,” he added.

He said it was only if the NUPW’s membership upheld the decision to suspend McDowall that he could then appeal to the High Court.

Franklyn said he also did not understand the reason behind Justice McCarthy’s decision to suspend the NUPW’s election.

He said McDowall’s membership had been suspended and, therefore, he could not take part in the union’s general elections.

“Having now accepted his expulsion, he can’t now want the elections held back so he can run. He can’t run because he is not a member because he did not contest his suspension from the union. The only place he can contest it is at the general membership,” Franklyn reiterated.

Speaking on the recent spate of controversies at the NUPW, Franklyn said it would do more harm to the labour movement in Barbados than good.

He said the in-house fighting would only cause division within the NUPW to its detriment.
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)