Justice Blackman leaves Employment Rights Tribunal to dedicate time to Constitution Review Commission

By Emmanuel Joseph

The chairman of the Employment Rights Tribunal (ERT) has quit the position citing his inability to dedicate the time required to both the work of the ERT and that of the Constitution Review Commission (CRC), which he also heads.

Retired Court of Appeal Justice Christopher Blackman handed in his letter of resignation to Minister of Labour Colin Jordan on March 29 almost one and a half years before his contract ends and four and a half years into his tenure as head of the tribunal.                                                                                     Justice Blackman, whose resignation took effect on March 31, drew the minister’s attention to a series of outstanding issues which he hoped would be speedily resolved.           

“Regrettably, the several issues which I have canvassed for, or worked upon over that time, including the provision of a dedicated space for the work of the tribunal, the enactment of Rules for the tribunal and amendments to the Employment Rights Act, continue to be ‘works in progress’,” Justice Blackman told Jordan in his one-page letter, a copy of which was obtained by Barbados TODAY. “It is my sincere wish that the speedy resolution of these matters occurs as soon as possible,” he added.

The former tribunal chair reminded the minister that he had indicated to him last September his intention to step down within six months.                                               ]“I have now given the decision in the final matter that I heard, and additionally, the publication by IMPACT Justice of decisions of the Tribunal for the years 2015 to 2021 is imminent. In the circumstances, I consider that this is an appropriate time to resign my appointment effective March 31, 2023,” Justice Blackman pointed out.

In reply to Justice Blackman’s letter, Minister Jordan accepted the resignation and thanked Blackman for his “time and hard work” as chairman, and for his important contributions to the ERT.

“Your dedication, commitment and innovation over the last four and a half four years are greatly appreciated,” Jordan said as he wished the former ERT chair every success in his personal and professional endeavours.

On Tuesday, Justice Blackman told Barbados TODAY that the most common cases which he adjudicated during his tenure as chair, related to employers who are not following the process when dismissing workers.

“Plus, there is increasingly an abuse of the right to consult or giving meaningful recognition to the issue of consultation. Consultation must be meaningful,” the retired High Court Judge contended.

He defended his judgments in relation to employers and employees.                     

“The issues are essentially resolved at termination. It is a question as to whether you are complying with the Act or not complying with the Act; and when somebody examines the decisions of the tribunal, you would find the tribunal has not been one-sided. They have held for the employer and have held for the employee. So nobody can say we were only for one side,” the retired judge asserted. Justice Blackman also referred to an “unwritten” story concerning the value of the decisions of the ERT.

“The value of the decisions enabled the employers to make settlements that therefore they did not go to judgment. There is one where a settlement was reached for over $100 000 because of the principles laid out in the decisions we have had. There is another one involving an offshore system where the settlement was in excess of $300 000 because the employer, when the principles were brought to their attention, just took up the calculator and agreed the numbers.

“A case was settled in November 2019 where the parties went away and decided that there was no point fighting. So there are probably as many settlements as there are judgments because once you have established there are certain principles and they are published, people say ‘there is no fighting this one because…’” the ex-tribunal chair reported.

Regarding the challenges faced by the commissioners while presiding over unfair dismissal cases, Blackman cited: “Lawyers asking for frequent adjournments, the ability of the tribunal to work as it would like because of the inability of lawyers to come to meet; the number of adjournments because of counsel relegating the tribunal to being an afterthought,” as among the most notable.

“They are saying they have to go before this court and the other court and you are last on the totem pole. So things drag on. I am embarrassed when I look in my notebook and see when things started and when they ended. People not showing,” Justice Blackman complained.  

“I think what I was able to do by putting some systems in place to enable more work to be done, I took the Civil Procedure Rules of the Supreme Court, took out certain parts and modified them to suit our circumstances, and essentially introduced the notion that you have to give me a witness statement at case management and then rely on that statement as your statement of truth. So you don’t have to spend time leading evidence afresh. The witness statements of both sides enable the tribunal, once it does its preparation, to determine the matter,” he explained.                                   

Justice Blackman noted that he had given more than 30 unfair dismissal decisions during his time on the tribunal, identifying the recent judgment in which he ruled that former general secretary of the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) Roslyn Smith was not unfairly terminated as one of the more high-profile ones.              

Other cases of national interest involved former Director of Marketing for the Caribbean and Latin America with the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc (BTMI) Vicki Chandler, ex-Acting Senior Settlement Officer with First Citizens Bank Debra Brathwaite,  former-Non-Sugar Crops Unit Manager at the Barbados Agricutural Marketing Corporation (BAMC) Edwin O’Neal and former agricultural manager and Head of the Agricultural Department of the same agency Dr Orville Wickham, all of whom were awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars for unfair dismissal.                                                                                                                                                              Minister Jordan could not be reached to speak about a possible successor and to comment on the outstanding issues raised in the resignation letter. The current Deputy Chair of the ERT is Kathy-Ann Hamblin. 

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb