Three years after the Employment Rights Tribunal (ERT) ordered a state-owned enterprise (SOE) to pay a former employee over $13,000 in compensation for unfair dismissal, not a cent of that money has yet been handed over.
In addition to that, ex-home helper with the National Assistance Board (NAB) Sherada Walters said Monday that the money remains unpaid even after the Court of Appeal later instructed the SOE to go ahead and compensate her pending the outcome of a legal challenge brought against the ERT decision by the NAB and a cross-appeal by Walters.
“On July 25th, 2019, I won the case of unfair dismissal. I was awarded the sum of $13,575.74 in compensation on November 25th, 2019 by the ERT to be paid on or before December 31st, 2019. I never received my award from the NAB that was made by the court. They [NAB] have never filed any documentation to any court asking to refrain from paying me until the appeal case had been heard,” Walters told Barbados TODAY.
“Even after the case had been called [in the Court of Appeal], the Chief Justice himself said to the NAB lawyers to go ahead and make the payments to me which should have been done already and that they were supposed to adhere to the decision made by the court,” she contended.
“The lawyers agreed, but still never complied or adhered up to this date,” Walters said.
She believes that the $13,000 award was not a win for her, but more like “a pat on the back” for the NAB.
“It’s like saying ‘yes’ you are wrong, but you are a government agency, so consequences, the law and being wrong do not apply to you.
“NAB is a law unto themselves, not of written laws. The government should not be lawmakers and lawbreakers at the same time. This case reminds me of the words that were said by the late Errol Walton Barrow: ‘If poor people want justice, stay out of the law Courts of Barbados,’” the former home helper declared.
Walters said she is also waiting on a decision from the Court of Appeal regarding the way forward on the legal challenges on both sides against the ERT’s decision.
“I have not received a decision from the Appeal Court. To be honest, I would prefer a retrial of the case and would love to take a lie detector test knowing that the truth doesn’t surface within some people, especially people who know they can get away with lying,” she stated.
In her cross-appeal dated April 27, 2021, Walters, who was terminated on February 6, 2014 after seven years of service, submitted four grounds of appeal including that the tribunal failed to consider or carefully consider the submissions made on behalf of the claimant/respondent on the issue of reinstatement or re-engagement in arriving at its decision to refuse to exercise its discretion in favour of either an order for re-engagement or reinstatement.
Another ground claimed that “In exercising its discretion to refuse to grant an order in favour of either re-engagement or reinstatement, the tribunal erred in law in failing to properly determine whether such an order was reasonably practicable, or if practicable, whether it would be just to make such an order in the circumstances of the case before it.”
Walters was dismissed from the state agency after refusing to sign three-day contracts in 2013 while working as a full-time employee.
“I worked as a full-time, five-day worker from September 1, 2011, for over a period of two years without being temporarily removed from my position on any occasion. I was continuously receiving five-day contracts every month from the above date until my services were terminated,” Walters argued.
When Barbados TODAY reached out to Director of the NAB Pauline Walcott, she declined to comment, but referred this media house to chairman Dr Sonia Browne.
Efforts to reach Dr Browne proved futile.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
