Steel Workers Union loses after 10 years

MORE THAN ten years after it filed a case in the Indus-trial Court against Caribbean Ispat Limited (ISPAT), the Steelworkers Union of Trinidad and Tobago (SUTT) lost the matter. In a judgment given last week, the Court found that ISPAT was not guilty of the industrial relations offence claim made by the union, and it dismissed the  application. SUTT’s claim was that about June 24, 1993, ISPAT took and continued to take industrial action in the form of a lockout against about 500 hourly-rated workers employed in the Steel Plant and Boiling Mill of the company’s operations. The union wanted the company to make good any losses in wages and other benefits suffered by the affected workers. At the hearing, Lex Lovell, President of SUTT since 1989 was the principal witness for the union.

He testified that when negotiations broke down between the company and the union for a new Collective Agreement for workers in Bargaining Units 2 and 3, these workers went on strike. Malcolm Grundy, ISPAT’s Vice-Presi-dent (Operations) was brought back to Trinidad from the United Kingdom to testify on behalf of the company. He said that the decision to cease operations was ta-ken, not only because of the absence of workers, but also because of the circumstances existing in the plant and what he termed “uncommon and unauthorised absences.” The Court heard that the entire situation arose, because workers in Bargaining Unit 1 planned selective absences in sympathy with their brethren in Bargaining Units 2 and 3 who were engaged in industrial action with the company. The Court was urged to find that the “judgment call” made by the company to close down temporarily was a justifiable response to the unsafe situation which had arisen. Dealing with a suggestion which implicated the company, the Court said: “For the union to prove the company guilty of taking illegal lockout action by artifically creating a dangerous situation, the union must show in the particular case that the company acted deliberately with intent to cause that enhanced danager as a means sof providing itself with an excuse for laying off workers.

The question of absences came up frequently during the course of the hearing of the matter. In clearing the air in this area, the court said in its judgment: “No employer can prevent an employee from becoming sick, nor can an employer prevent any number of employees becoming sick at more or less the same time. “However, if the absence of such employees, legitimate though it might be, creates a dangerous situation on the premises, the employer would be justified in averting the absence of actual damage to persons and property on the premises by suspending operations.