Pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court of T&T Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix re­cent­ly launched her book on labour law and in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions ti­tled “Labour Law in the Com­mon­wealth Caribbean: The Prac­tice of Good In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions in the 21st Cen­tu­ry”.

This book comes when trade unions’ mem­ber­ship has fall­en dras­ti­cal­ly in T&T, and glob­al­ly, eco­nom­ic changes have rel­e­gat­ed per­ma­nent jobs to a rel­ic of the past, and the In­dus­tri­al Court it­self has come un­der fire from some sec­tors that have tak­en the view that it is not im­par­tial in de­liv­er­ing its judg­ments.

Thomas-Fe­lix spoke to the Sun­day Guardian specif­i­cal­ly about her new book and its rel­e­vance dur­ing this time of rapid changes in the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions en­vi­ron­ment.

Q. What in­spired you to write the book?

A. In the past, I gave thought of the need to have books which are ded­i­cat­ed to the sub­ject area of good In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions. Last year, with the ad­vent of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, a num­ber of peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly em­ploy­ers, sought guid­ance and as­sis­tance on the pro­vi­sions of the laws re­lat­ed to lay­off, re­dun­dan­cy, re­trench­ment, oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safe­ty, and oth­er burn­ing is­sues that are af­fect­ing the labour mar­ket.

I am al­so aware that ad­vice was sought from oth­er judges of the In­dus­tri­al Court. I felt that there was a need to pro­vide guid­ance on is­sues that are in­her­ent­ly ger­mane to in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and to have a pub­li­ca­tion that can be used as a repos­i­to­ry of in­for­ma­tion on good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and al­so on the im­por­tance of in­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards. So I de­cid­ed to write and in so do­ing, dis­cuss var­i­ous top­ics on the prac­tice of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and labour law.

Is such a book much need­ed for T&T's In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions at this time?

Cur­rent­ly, we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a glob­al pan­dem­ic and we are seek­ing an­swers and search­ing for so­lu­tions on how to ad­just and adapt in these times to life af­ter the cri­sis. I will quote from my book and say, “there is a temp­ta­tion some­times to put in­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards aside and to treat them as not im­por­tant in times of cri­sis. This is the time, more than ever, where the ad­her­ence to prop­er labour stan­dards as­sume even greater im­por­tance to min­imise in­sta­bil­i­ty in the fu­ture and to safe­guard the in­ter­ests of all in the world of work.”

A short an­swer is that a book like this and teach­ings on in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions is much need­ed at this time not on­ly in T&T but glob­al­ly. There is a need for em­ploy­ers, unions and work­ers to un­der­stand labour laws, the labour mar­ket, the prac­tice of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and the im­por­tance of the ap­pli­ca­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards in the world of work.

What are some of the main top­ics ex­plored in the book?

The top­ics dis­cussed in the book are Man­age­ment Pre­rog­a­tive, Fixed-Term Con­tracts, Lay­off, Re­trench­ment, Re­in­state­ment, Labour-sup­ply Con­tracts (al­so called, ‘Labour-on­ly Con­tracts’) and Dis­missals.

In the area of dis­missal, I dis­cussed the le­gal im­port of Sum­ma­ry Dis­missal, Eq­ui­ty, Good Con­science and the Sub­stan­tial Mer­its of the Case, The Right to be Heard, Aban­don­ment, Con­struc­tive dis­missal, The Use of Nar­cotics in the Work­place among oth­er top­ics

What has been the re­ac­tion to the book from the stake­hold­ers in so­ci­ety? The trade unions, the Min­istry of Labour, the busi­ness sec­tor, and oth­er in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions par­tic­i­pants?

Stake­hold­ers from all sec­tors have been very sup­port­ive and they have been re­quest­ing copies of the book for which I am very grate­ful. Due to COVID-19, we held three small launch­es in­stead of a large launch. One was held with the Cipri­ani Col­lege of Labour and Co-op­er­a­tive Stud­ies, one with the Em­ploy­ers Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion, and an­oth­er one with the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce.

At times, T&T’s in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions en­vi­ron­ment has been rocky with con­fronta­tion among dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers.

The prac­tice of in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions is very dy­nam­ic and it es­sen­tial­ly is about re­la­tion­ships in the world of work. As you know, there are com­pet­ing in­ter­ests in the work­place. There is the in­ter­est of the em­ploy­er and there is the in­ter­est of unions and work­ers. From that con­text, I will not say that the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions en­vi­ron­ment is rocky but rather, I would say that it is dy­nam­ic and there is usu­al­ly volatil­i­ty in the labour mar­ket.

How does a book like this shed light on good In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions prac­tice for dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers?

The name of the book is “Labour Law in the Com­mon­wealth Caribbean: The Prac­tice of Good In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions in the 21st Cen­tu­ry”. The main fo­cus of the book is a dis­cus­sion, with the use of rel­e­vant cas­es on what are the prin­ci­ples and prac­tice of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and by ex­ten­sion what are the in­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards. In the dis­cus­sion of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions, I ex­am­ined de­ci­sions and rul­ings in 176 cas­es on what is ac­cept­able and what is re­gard­ed as good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions. In my view, good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions is the demon­stra­tion of fair­ness and eq­ui­ty in the work­place. It re­quires ad­her­ence to the prin­ci­ples of fair­ness, eq­ui­ty, equal­i­ty of treat­ment, the rules of nat­ur­al jus­tice to­geth­er with the use of in­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards. It de­mands that work­ers work in safe con­di­tions, that they re­ceive de­cent wages and that they are treat­ed with dig­ni­ty and re­spect at work. The ad­van­tage which an em­ploy­er de­rives from the prac­tice of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and a good work­ing en­vi­ron­ment is a mo­ti­vat­ed task force with high pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and less dis­rup­tion of re­cruit­ment and re­ten­tion of staff.

Out­side of T&T, what has been the re­ac­tion to the book?

There is a high de­mand in the Caribbean. As re­cent as yes­ter­day (Thurs­day), there was a re­quest from a book­store in Guyana. I have had re­quests from Grena­da and the wider Caribbean. I have al­so had re­quests from per­sons in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.

Does a book like this demon­strate that T&T is mak­ing a con­tri­bu­tion to the world of mod­ern In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions?

The ju­rispru­dence that has de­vel­oped in the area has shown that T&T is ahead in its ap­proach to mod­ern in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions. In Chap­ter 6 of my book, I did a com­par­a­tive analy­sis on the laws of the Ba­hamas, the laws of Eng­land and the laws of T&T. From that analy­sis, one can see that the laws of T&T, par­tic­u­lar­ly the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act, have a more mod­ern and broad­er ap­proach to in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions than some coun­tries.

Put an­oth­er way, the ju­rispru­dence that has de­vel­oped in this area since the in­cep­tion of the In­dus­tri­al Court in 1965 demon­strates that T&T has con­tributed, and con­tin­ues to con­tribute to and to em­brace the prin­ci­ples and prac­tice of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions in the 21st cen­tu­ry.

Yes, it does in­deed help that there is writ­ing on this spe­cif­ic sub­ject area by some­one from T&T.