TT Chamber CEO summoned by the Industrial Court

The subpoenas were issued to the three who are expected to appear before the court next Tuesday.

The Chamber is also expected to furnish the court with copies of all reports, interviews, inserts, programmes, audio visual clips and CCTV footage in prints and electronic, inclusive of blogs, and commentary pertaining to a breakfast meeting held by the Chamber on November 30, under the theme “The Impact of Industrial Court Judgments on your Business.” At the panel discussion, Mouttet and Ali were critical of the court.

Mouttet blamed the Court for low productivity in the country and described the court as harsh and oppressive in its judgments, favouring workers and unions against employers while Ali called for a lobby for pro-business judges on the Industrial Court bench.

Earlier this week, the National Trade Union Centre issued a statement challenging Mouttet for his statements while head of the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) Ancel Roget on Wednesday demanded a retraction.

Roget said the comments by Mouttet showed a gross disrespect for the court.

In May, president of the Industrial Court Deborah Thomas-Felix defended the partiality of the Court against claims that it favours workers and said employers lose cases because of “harsh and oppressive” conduct.

She stressed that people may disagree with some rulings of the Court “but to seek to impugn its impartiality or diminish the importance of its role and function, is simply not the way to go.” Employers, she said, allegedly claimed “that the judgments coming out of the court favoured the worker at the expense of the employer and the survival of the business as a going and profitable enterprise”.

Thomas-Felix reported that for the period 2014-2015 there were 2,744 matters and of these 747 were disposed by the adversarial process.

Out of these, 230 judgments, or 30 percent, were in favour of employers.

She also reported that of the withdrawn matters 24.9 percent were withdrawn by unions and therefore the employer won.

“If you do the math it will answer the question whether the judgments of the Court favour workers,” she added.

The total percentage of disputes resolved in favour of employers during the period 2011 to 2015 was 54.9 pecent.