Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Eight years af­ter the ma­rine con­tract­ing com­pa­ny they worked for was placed in re­ceiver­ship, 34 for­mer em­ploy­ees have re­ceived their salary ar­rears.

The for­mer em­ploy­ees of KGC Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed re­ceived their cheques dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union (SWW­TU) Hall at Wright­son Road in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day morn­ing.

In 2017, KGC, which op­er­at­ed two tug­boats and a crane barge, was placed in­to re­ceiver­ship by Re­pub­lic Bank over a sig­nif­i­cant un­paid debt.

The bank en­gaged Ernst and Young to over­see the re­ceiver­ship process.

KGC chal­lenged a move to sell its as­sets to help clear its debt but suf­fered suc­ces­sive le­gal de­feats, in­clud­ing in a fi­nal ap­peal be­fore the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil.

While the lit­i­ga­tion was be­ing pur­sued, many of the com­pa­ny’s crew mem­bers con­tin­ued to op­er­ate the com­pa­ny’s as­sets on the re­ceiv­er’s be­half.

KGC’s ma­rine as­sets were even­tu­al­ly sold in 2021, but the em­ploy­ees were not paid the salaries they were owed when the re­ceiver­ship process was ini­ti­at­ed.

The SWW­TU, with the as­sis­tance of the In­ter­na­tion­al Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion Trade Union (ITF) and its at­tor­neys Nyree Al­fon­so and Asif Ho­sein-Shah, in­ter­vened on the work­ers’ be­half.

They suc­cess­ful­ly ar­rest­ed the three ves­sels, which were al­ready in the pos­ses­sion of third par­ties.

They then pur­sued a law­suit over the out­stand­ing pay­ments.

In the case, the SWW­TU sought to re­ly on a mar­itime le­gal prin­ci­ple un­der which the crew of a ves­sel is to be com­pen­sat­ed first in re­ceiver­ship sit­u­a­tions as op­posed to the se­cured cred­i­tors in nor­mal com­pa­nies.

The af­fect­ed work­ers were over­joyed as they re­ceived their cheques yes­ter­day.

“I thought that that mon­ey was dead and we would nev­er get it.

“Thank God, I was wrong,” one work­er said, as he and his col­leagues thanked the union and Al­fon­so for their as­sis­tance.

In a brief in­ter­view, SWW­TU pres­i­dent Michael An­nisette said he was pleased with the out­come of the case de­spite its pro­tract­ed na­ture.

He al­so not­ed that the union pur­sued it on be­half of the work­ers, al­though they were not mem­bers, based on its role as the re­gion­al ITF rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

“The SWW­TU is the re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive on be­half of sea­far­ers, so if there is any is­sue in­volv­ing sea­far­ers, we are du­ty-bound to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions on their be­half,” An­nisette said.

“I’m hop­ing that this will lead work­ers to un­der­stand the im­por­tance of hav­ing union rep­re­sen­ta­tion when you are in­volved in a mat­ter, be­cause they lost and gave up faith af­ter all these years, but to­day they are all hap­py,” he added.

He al­so sug­gest­ed that the Gov­ern­ment should con­sid­er mak­ing leg­isla­tive changes to in­tro­duce the mar­itime le­gal prin­ci­ple for nor­mal com­pa­nies to give more pro­tec­tion to work­ers, who he de­scribed as the most vul­ner­a­ble in re­ceiver­ship sit­u­a­tions.

“We are say­ing in the SWW­TU that the com­pa­ny law must change to give pri­or­i­ty to work­ers’ salaries,” he said.