ATTORNEYS representing the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) and two aggrieved employees have challenged a March 2020 Supreme Court ruling which held that the non-judicial body had no jurisdiction to settle redundancy disputes.

The IDT in 2015 intervened in a dispute between Norma Roberts and accounting firm Chartermagnates Limited over whether she should have been paid redundancy monies for her 26 years of service to the company after it turned over its operations to another firm in 2013. The IDT, which held that Roberts had been “surreptitiously terminated from her job without the appropriate documentation”, had ordered that she be “compensated” by the payment of 68 weeks’ basic salary. However, following a claim brought by Chartermagnates Limited, Supreme Court judge Justice Kirk Anderson, in a February 14, 2020 ruling, sided with the entity and quashed the award, stating, “I agree with the claimant’s counsel’s submission that the IDT does not have jurisdiction over redundancy matters. If it were otherwise, the ETRPA [Employment Termination and Redundancy Payments Act] would be rendered nugatory. The IDT does not have concurrent jurisdiction with the courts, in respect of redundancy matters”.

The IDT, which is named as the first appellant and Roberts the second, in challenging that decision before the Appeal Court, is contending that the judge “fell into error” in his conclusions on the matter and has asked the body to set aside the ruling by Justice Anderson and restore the award.

Similarly, the IDT is challenging Justice Anderson’s decision in respect of Winston Sewell, a former employee of Cable & Wireless Jamaica. Cable & Wireless, in a suit filed before Justice Anderson, had questioned the IDT’s jurisdiction to address the dispute between the parties, as to whether Sewell was separated from his employment with Cable & Wireless, on the basis of retirement (Cable & Wireless’ contention), or on the basis that his position had been made redundant (Sewell’s contention).

Justice Anderson, in also quashing the IDT’s award to Sewell, said, “it is declared that a claim for a redundancy payment and any labour dispute as regards a redundancy payment, does not constitute an ‘industrial dispute’ within the meaning attributed to that quoted term, in the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act”.

Following the submissions which were heard on January 27, 28 and 31 this year, the panel and the attorneys involved were at one in acknowledging that the appeals raised important questions of law regarding the IDT’s jurisdiction to hear and determine redundancy-related matters.

The issue is one that has also been the subject of conflicting decisions in the Supreme Court.

The IDT is a quasi-judicial body established in 1975 under the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act to arbitrate on all industrial disputes referred to it by the minister of labour and social security who has responsibility under the Act. The IDT deals with disputes involving unionised as well as non-unionised workers.

—Alicia Dunkley-Willis