The Joint Cham­bers said yes­ter­day the change in lead­er­ship of the In­dus­tri­al Court of­fers an op­por­tu­ni­ty for a much-need­ed, holis­tic re­set and re­view of the leg­is­la­tion and in­sti­tu­tions that im­pact the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate.

For­mer In­dus­tri­al Court pres­i­dent Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix’s con­tract was not re­newed last week, and Heather Seale was ap­point­ed as the new Pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court, on De­cem­ber 13.

This did not sit well with the unions. The Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) de­liv­ered a let­ter to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo call­ing for her to re­think her po­si­tion.

JTUM had al­leged then that the non-re­new­al of the con­tract was be­ing in­ter­pret­ed as a way for the Gov­ern­ment to get an up­per hand in in­dus­tri­al dis­putes by se­lect­ing some­one who may be be­hold­en to the Pres­i­dent and the par­ty she once rep­re­sent­ed.

How­ev­er, in a state­ment by the Joint Cham­bers yes­ter­day, it said if the In­dus­tri­al Court is to play “the pos­i­tive role every­body would like it to play” it is vi­tal that not on­ly, it be im­par­tial and un­bi­ased, but it must be seen to be so as well.

“Per­cep­tions are im­por­tant if the Court is to gain the trust of all of the pop­u­la­tion,” the cham­bers said.

The Joint Cham­bers con­sist­ing of the Am­Cham T&T, the En­er­gy Cham­ber, the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, and the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion have con­sis­tent­ly ad­vo­cat­ed for a com­plete re­form of the coun­try’s in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions sys­tem.

“We have made pro­gres­sive and pos­i­tive rec­om­men­da­tions to the Gov­ern­ment to cre­ate a new sys­tem that guar­an­tees clear, fair, and trans­par­ent em­ploy­ment rights for all em­ploy­ees, whilst en­sur­ing that em­ploy­ers can op­er­ate ef­fi­cient­ly and in­vest in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. We made these rec­om­men­da­tions to the Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil and over many ses­sions sat with Trade Union lead­ers and the Gov­ern­ment to ar­gue our po­si­tion qui­et­ly and clear­ly.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the trade union move­ment de­cid­ed to with­draw from the process, cit­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s lack of re­spect. It should be not­ed that the trade unions nev­er cit­ed a lack of re­spect for the process from the Joint Cham­bers or oth­er em­ploy­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives,” the cham­bers de­tailed.

The Joint Cham­bers added that they want a fair, bal­anced, and un­bi­ased In­dus­tri­al Court that dis­pens­es jus­tice con­sis­tent­ly for all, “That, we hope, is the de­sire of all em­ploy­ees, em­ploy­ers, and their rep­re­sen­ta­tives”

Al­so com­ment­ing on the new In­dus­tri­al Court pres­i­dent’s ap­point­ment, the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC) which said it looks for­ward to Jus­tice Heather Seale bring­ing new per­spec­tives and bal­ance to the po­si­tion.

“We al­so hope she will serve with the trans­paren­cy and fair­ness that jus­tice as­pires to be, with­in the In­dus­tri­al Court. It is no se­cret that in the past the In­dus­tri­al Court has been per­ceived to be par­tial to one par­ty over the oth­er,” CR­BC stat­ed.

The CR­BC in­di­cat­ed that this ap­point­ment may serve as a cat­a­lyst to im­prove the re­la­tion­ships be­tween em­ploy­ers and em­ploy­ees and re­duce con­flict and the per­cep­tions of “one-sid­ed­ness.”