Industrial Court an alternative to strike action

THE PRESIDENT of the Industrial Court Justice Addison Khan has made it clear that the policy of the Court is to encourage employers to remain in business and continue to employ people.

In other words, he said, the Court will not make an order against an employer if the effect of that order is to put that employer out of business. “Employers employ workers and without employers, there can be no workers,” he stressed. Justice Khan was speaking to members of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce at a recent breakfast meeting. His address was titled: “Understanding the Procedures of and the Presentation of cases at the Industrial Court.” Giving another example of how the Court works, Justice Khan said its jurisdiction is for the settlement of trade disputes, “but the principles and practices of industrial relations difffer in many respects from the principles of the common law.”

On the question of a wage dispsute, Justice Khan noted that an employer may be in a profitable position and able to pay his workers substantial wages. But he was adamant: “The Court must not however regard an employer’s ability to pay as a licence to order the payment of exhorbitant wages which are out of proportion to the wages paid by other employers in the particular sector concerned.” According to Justice Khan, if this is done,  it would create chaos in industrial relations.

Another point made by Justice Khan was that the Court is not bound by legal technicalities or legal form or the rules of evidence. “Representatives of parties waste a lot of time in Court on arguments about the admissibility of evidence. The duty of the Court is to get all the facts and make a fair and just decision,” said Justice Khan. Referring to the Industrial Stabilisation Act itself, Justice Khan posed the question: “Do you prefer industrial disputes to be determined in a civilised, orderly manner by judicial processs, or do you want to revert to the days of indiscriminate strike action?” He had the answer: “I admit that the present system is not a perfect one. The judges who hear the cases are human beings who are not infallible. “Delays in the system are well known, but it would be a grave mista1ke to abandon the present system of adjudication by judicial process to revert to what has been described as the ‘law of the jungle’,” he said.