Court fines BWIA $5,000

THE Industrial Court has fined national airline BWIA $5,000 for failing to pay severance benefits to workers on time. BWIA was also ordered to pay 12 percent interest on the late severance benefits — an award which is the highest ever awarded by the Industrial Court under the Retrenchment and Severance Benefits Act (1985). The previous highest interest payment was three percent in a matter between NUGFW and WASA in 1991. In a ten-page judgment, Judge Gregory Baker ordered BWIA to pay the fine before March 31. Also, the national airline will pay the interest on the severance benefits to the workers in three instalments on the last working days of March, April and May. But neither the representatives of the airline nor the Aviation Communications and Allied Workers Union (ACA-WU) could say how much money the cash-strapped airline will have to pay according to this judgment.

Last year, BWIA retrenched 617 workers from the airline — 417 of which belonged to ACAWU. A total of $54 million was eventually paid to the workers, who complained that they received their monies long after the March 15, 2003 deadline. By letter dated May 22, 2003, ACAWU complained that a number of workers had not received severance payments as provided for by the Act. On November 26, 2003, the airline admitted failure to pay at the specified time and advanced certain explanations for that failure. According to Judge Baker, the effect of that admission was a plea of guilty to the industrial relations offence. The judge said this was not merely a matter between BWIA and ACAWU and the retrenched workers in this dispute. “It is a matter with implications for the nearly two thousand persons who continue in employment, the wider international community served by the employer company and the company’s socio-economic importance to the community of Trinidad and Tobago.”

Judge Baker continued, “the court has the duty to strike a balance between these several interests fraught with peril though it may be shrinking from such a task is not an option to be taken even if it were available.” He said BWIA’s reasons for late payment were dire financial straights, a struggle for survival and efforts to pay. The court, he added, treated these statements by the airline as a plea in mitigation of the industrial relations offence which it had admitted. “On the workers’ part, dire financial straits and a struggle for survival as a result of being no longer employed, but having to meet personal and family commitments were advanced as important considerations,” Judge Baker added. The Judge said if BWIA had not admitted the offence, a more severe penalty would have been appropriate. “Employers must take their duties in matters of retrenchment and severance seriously and perhaps it is yet another time of opportunity for employer and worker representatives to jointly and in good faith explore better, perhaps more formal mechanisms including provision and responsible use of sensitive, confidential information to make an unpleasant but sometime necessary task less troublesome.”

Judge Baker pointed out that the Industrial Court was a superior court of record and was vested with all the powers of the High Court when dealing with the question of interest. Following the judgment, Christopher Abraham, president of ACAWU, told Newsday that his union had been vindicated. He called on the BWIA Board, led by CLICO’s Lawrence Duprey to resign. He said it was the Board to blame for the financial crisis in which the airline had found itself. Abraham believes that the private sector interest in the airline should relieve itself and give total control of BWIA to the Government. This, he added, would give security of tenure to the remainder of the workers. Ian Ashman, Director of Employee Services at BWIA, said there was never any doubt that the airline failed to pay the severance on time. Although the airline management has not yet studied the judgment, he said based on the admission of the airline, the decision of the Industrial Court was final.