‘Poor Man’s Court’

Five months shy of its 50th anniversary, the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) has ruled on 3,465 cases and remains active with nearly 70 ongoing matters, despite reduced public attention, according to Chairman Errol Miller.

Established under the Michael Manley administration in April 1975 under the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act (LRIDA), the IDT is mandated to regulate employer-worker relations, resolve industrial disputes, and conduct inquiries into matters related to labour and economic conditions.

The “seeming drought of news of the tribunal and its work” is as a result of the shift in the industrial relations environment, he told The Sunday Gleaner.

“When you had a lot of unions and a lot of unionised workers, then the IDT would have been very busy dealing with collective bargaining matters. Because of the reduction in the unionised workforce, you would not hear a lot about that element of the IDT’s work. We were accustomed to hearing about strikes and the IDT sending workers back to work, or the IDT making awards of particular salary increases and benefits to different workers … ,” he explained.

The IDT underwent significant reform in 2010 under then-Minister of Labour Pearnel Charles Sr, allowing individual workers to directly take cases to the ministry.

“This is the Poor Man’s Court and they didn’t have to pay to come to the Ministry of Labour or carry lawyers there. A worker did not have to present with QCs (Queen’s Counsel) or KCs (King’s Counsel) to represent them. The ministry would listen to both sides and if the parties failed to get an agreement, the matter would go to the IDT. ... It did not matter how long things took, it is heard until a decision is reached,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Miller described the 2010 amendment – “which we think is part of his (Charles’) real legacy at the ministry” – as transformative.

“Prior to then, an individual worker could not get to the IDT. Initially that was the case – everybody was able to come – but there were some matters that went to court, and the court ruled that an individual dispute does not meet the threshold to go before the IDT,” the chairman explained.

“There were a lot of persons who, if they didn’t have the money to employ a lawyer to go to court, they would really suffer ... and they couldn’t get justice ... . And in particular, it concerned middle managers, and even senior managers, because more often than not, the lower members of the workforce were unionised.”

The IDT’s current cases involve contract workers without industrial backing and dismissed permanent employees.

Miller noted that the IDT panels – comprising representatives appointed on two-year terms by the labour minister from lists submitted by the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions and the Jamaica Employers Federation – are essential for ensuring fair adjudication.

The three Kingston panels have their hands full and it is no different for the panel in Montego Bay, the latter now handling 30 cases.

Granville Valentine, president of the National Workers’ Union (NWU), believes the IDT is the “only body” that gives the ordinary man a fair hearing in labour disputes.

“The tribunal is a fair and just body for both employees and employers who need redress. I don’t see anything that can replace the IDT. What we need to do is to strengthen it,” Valentine said, suggesting that stronger sanctions be introduced for employers who delay honouring awards.

“Workers have waited for years for awards and when they are eventually paid, it is the bare minimum of what the IDT imposed. I believe that where an award is handed down, and the employers have not challenged the ruling, but take years to honour it, ... they should be made to pay interest on the award,” Valentine expressed.

He said the IDT has the power to order interest on awards, citing the case of the Jamaica Flour Mills (JFM) versus three employees.

The jobs of Simon Sukie, Michael Campbell and Ferron Gordon were made redundant in August 1999. Campbell and Gordon had already collected redundancy payments, when the dispute went before the IDT. The tribunal sided with the NWU that the redundancies were not genuine, as they breached the Labour Relations Code (LRC). JFM argued that they were made in accordance with the Employment (Termination and Redundancy Payments) Act. The IDT awarded pay increases of 10 per cent in the first year, and five per cent to 10 per cent in the second of a two-year award. The case ended up at the Privy Council, which agreed with the IDT on awards with interest.

“Conservatively, I say we have a 95 per cent success rate in matters which have gone to the courts. It’s not many cases that we have lost, and there are times when the cases are won on some technicalities. We are laymen; and so there are sometimes some technicalities for success, but we are successful up to the Privy Council,” he said.

Miller pointed to the case of The University of Technology, Jamaica versus lab technician Carlene Spencer, whose dismissal was overturned by the IDT and later upheld by the Privy Council after a prolonged legal battle.

He also recalled the Village Resorts Ltd versus the Grand Lido Negril Association, where the workers were seeking union representation and were locked out and dismissed. The tribunal ruled against the company and the matter went to court. He recalled it being a “seminal case because Justice Carl Rattray made some very important rulings in that case that are quoted from time to time. That was a highly unique case”.

Kavan Gayle, president general of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union, said: “Having reviewed other tribunals, I have found that the IDT has one of the most effective and far-reaching effects.

“Lambert Brown and I would have been saying over the years, ‘Review tribunals and have some level of consistency and align tribunals to be governed similarly to the IDT in terms of its effectiveness and its structure’,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Gayle, a senator, also hailed the 2010 LRIDA amendment as being “good for workers who never had the opportunity to appear before what we consider the urban courts”, but said it has created its own challenges.

“Because of this overwhelming propensity among some employers who will just dismiss you if they don’t like you, it comes to the ministry ... . So I would say as much as 80 per cent of the matters going before tribunal are matters of disciplinary or non-unionised staff. What that has done is it has overwhelmed the tribunal. So the capacity, in my mind, needs to be expanded,” he said.

He recommends more personnel and panels to hear the volume of cases as well as technological upgrades to eliminate the taking of notes by hand. He said adding stenographers would be beneficial to the tribunal.

Gayle praised the various panels for their dedication, experience and competence, noting that many top lawyers have lost to the IDT.

Brown, also a senator, is president of the University & Allied Workers Union. He noted that some cases take a long time to be adjudicated.

“It depends on the complexity of the case, the number of witnesses to be called, and the scheduling of the tribunal. The case may go to a panel that already has other lingering cases and so it comes down to scheduling. I remember doing a case which had 59 sittings over several years. Consider if you were a lawyer being paid by the hour going to court 59 times! The union representatives are being paid by union dues,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Hearings for a case can range from a day to several months, and the IDT currently has hearing dates scheduled as far ahead as March 2025.

Wayne Chen, chairman of the Jamaica Employers Federation (JEF), calls the IDT “a critical Jamaican institution”.

“[It] represents the most publicly visible expression of tripartisan, collaboration of labour, employer, and Government to ensure that Jamaica has harmonious workplaces operating at the highest standards,” he said.

“Over the years, some employers have grown wary of the tribunal based mainly on experiences of cases that have gone against them on procedural grounds, where evidence had heavily been in their favour. Since 2010, many small and medium enterprises have found that the strictures of the labour code, while relevant to large businesses, are cumbersome and impractical for smaller operators,” Chen added.

“JEF believes that greater public education around Jamaica’s labour laws and regulations is critical, and the labour code’s applicability to SMEs needs to be reviewed.”

He, too, believes digitalisation would enhance transparency and speed at the IDT.

“Currently, accessing cases and important precedents at the IDT involves legal assistants and researchers sifting through hundreds of paper files and thousands of pages. ... Records and processes need to be upgraded from paper-based to digital and online, and the case records need to be made easily accessible to all for the sake of improving the IDT’s efficiency,” he stated.

As the IDT approaches its 50th anniversary in 2025, Miller acknowledged that its underlying legislation, though effective, is overdue for revision. He emphasised the need for more enforceable sanctions against defiance of rulings by both workers and employers.

“For example, where workers take industrial action and the tribunal [ordered them] back to work, although there are penalties for not going back to work, it’s difficult to enforce them. I recall a recent case where the workers defied the order of the tribunal, but nothing came out of it,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

“The law was designed for people to accept the ruling of the IDT about going back to work. It says if you don’t obey, then there are penalties, but in order to get to those penalties, there’s a process,” he said.

Miller explained that the IDT would have to go to the police commissioner or director of public prosecutions to have back-to-work orders enforced – a time-consuming exercise in a situation that demands urgency.

“If we are to make a difference, then the laws that govern all the tribunal operations and all the relationships between workers and management operators need to be strengthened,” the IDT chairman said.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com