Ex-GM admits not following employment rights law in retrenchment

The retired head of the state-owned farm management company has confessed to breaching the country’s Employment Rights Act in the process of terminating four of its workers, the Employment Rights Tribunal heard Thursday.

Dealing a severe blow to the Barbados Agricultural Management Company’s case, Leslie Parris, the former BAMC General Manager made the concession in his testimony before the tribunal at the Warrens Office Complex.

Parris was giving evidence in the unfair dismissal suit brought against the BAMC by terminated non-sugar crop manager Edwin O’Neal and his three co-workers Winston Bailey, Carol Bramble and Philmore Gilkes, all of whom were made redundant on December 27, 2018, under the first phase of the International Monetary Fund-supported Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) plan.

Responding to the chairman of the ERT Justice Christopher Blackman, she admitted that the company had dismissed the employees in contravention of the law which stipulates that the Chief Labour Officer must be consulted when 10 per cent or a “significant” number of workers are being made redundant.

Describing BAMC’s financial situation as catastrophic when the Government pulled its $12 million annual subvention on which it relied to pay wages and salaries, Parris told the three-member tribunal that the company was therefore forced to “make deep cuts” in the staff.

He explained that 65 per cent of the company’s expenses were from wages and salaries and, at the time, the agency was insolvent.

In an apparent effort to justify not consulting with the Chief Labour Officer prior to retrenchment, Parris testified that the BAMC had to take a decision on the state of the finances expeditiously, considering the Government had indicated it wanted its public sector-wide cost-cutting process completed by December 30.

Under examination by Deighton Marshall, the labour lawyer and industrial relations consultant for the company, the retired general manager said he eventually consulted with the Labour Department after the employees were terminated.

The tribunal heard that the company had formulated a retrenchment list of 111 employees represented by the Barbados Workers Union (BWU) and the Sugar Industries Staff Association (SISA) headed by O’Neal.

It was told that 14 of those were members of the SISA, including O’Neal’s boss.

It was further revealed that Parris did not respond to two letters sent to the company on behalf of SISA as a follow up to the BAMC’s request that the association provide its views on the intended redundancies.

Parris explained that he did not think that the association’s reply to its request was germane to the issue at hand when SISA stated it would not be having any discussions on the matter until it “drilled down” into the company’s figures.

The ex-general manager also told the panel that the staff association’s subsequent offer to meet and discuss the retrenchment surprised him because a meeting had already been set at a later date in December 2018 when he was prepared to consult on all issues of concern.

Attorney for the dismissed workers, Sean Lewis, spent some time focusing the tribunal’s attention on the relationship between management and the SISA members, particularly on O’Neal as president, and the rest of the leadership.

O’Neal had just finished his testimony when the ex-BAMC general manager was asked to respond to a suggestion by Lewis that Parris had targeted O’Neal in his capacity as a union leader to be sent home.

But Parris was adamant that he never targeted O’Neal, pointing out that their relationship had always been cordial.

When O’Neal took the stand, he told the panel that the first-in, last-out policy which is embraced by the Government was not followed by the company, particularly with respect to his termination.

As he was being questioned by his attorney, the witness pointed out that a young lady who was hired after him was retained.

He also told the tribunal that the company violated the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) convention regarding the treatment of union leaders when it retrenched the leadership of the SISA.

O’Neal suggested that the company could have retained him because at the time there were several vacancies for a farm manager in various categories and he had the competence to fit into any of them.

But Justice Blackman brought the focus back to the narrow scope of the tribunal in that it must come to a decision on a question of law.

The bottom line was whether the BAMC complied with the provisions of the Employment Rights Act when it terminated the services of the workers, he said.

In the closest indication of the likely outcome of the case, the tribunal chairman instructed the ex-workers’ lawyer to submit a skeletal argument in writing by August 27 on what financial awards his clients should receive, with a response to the calculations from the company’s counsel due by August 30.

The chairman said after he has received all the submissions the tribunal would then consider its judgment.
(emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)