DEREK ACHONG

In­dus­tri­al Court Pres­i­dent Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix has stat­ed that manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tions can­not be im­ple­ment­ed uni­lat­er­al­ly by em­ploy­ers.

De­liv­er­ing her an­nu­al speech at the open­ing of the court's 2021/2022 Law Term at its head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain, this morn­ing, Thomas-Fe­lix stat­ed that while em­ploy­ers are per­mit­ted to in­tro­duce a vac­ci­na­tion pol­i­cy for new em­ploy­ees, con­sul­ta­tion is manda­to­ry for it to ap­ply to ex­ist­ing work­ers.

Thomas-Fe­lix said: "In oth­er words, can such a pol­i­cy be in­tro­duced uni­lat­er­al­ly by em­ploy­ers in the work­place? The short an­swer to that ques­tion is NO."

"The in­tro­duc­tion of a COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion pol­i­cy or any new pol­i­cy can amount to a ma­te­r­i­al change in the terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment and ought to be im­posed uni­lat­er­al­ly," she added.

She not­ed that if work­ers or their recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union can­not come to an agree­ment over such a pol­i­cy, they can take their dis­pute to the Min­istry of Labour or come di­rect­ly to the court through the fil­ing of an in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fence.

Thomas-Fe­lix al­so sug­gest­ed that unions and em­ploy­ers con­sid­er adding COVID-19 re­lat­ed claus­es when en­ter­ing in­to ne­go­ti­a­tions for new col­lec­tive agree­ments.

Thomas-Fe­lix not­ed that while be­tween Jan­u­ary to March 2020 on­ly six in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fences were filed at the court, 178 were filed be­tween March 2020 and Sep­tem­ber 14.

"Most of these in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fences are com­plaints re­lat­ed to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the ma­jor­i­ty of them per­tain to the lack of con­sul­ta­tion by em­ploy­ers with work­ers, the uni­lat­er­al al­ter­ations of terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment and the fail­ure of em­ploy­ers to en­ter in­to col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing with unions to dis­cuss and re­solve COVID-19 re­lat­ed is­sues," Thomas-Fe­lix said.

She sug­gest­ed that the high rate of fil­ings demon­strat­ed the ab­sence of so­cial di­a­logue by many in the work­place.

"Uni­lat­er­al COVID-19-re­lat­ed de­ci­sions are caus­ing a de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of labour man­age­ment re­la­tions which is very trou­bling and does not au­gur well for in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the post-COVID-19 econ­o­my," Thomas-Fe­lix said.

“I strong­ly urge all par­tic­i­pants of the labour mar­ket to take note of this de­vel­op­ment and to make ef­forts to re­verse this," she added.