PEARTBalford Henry, News Editor
MINISTER OF Labour and Social Security, Dean Peart, yesterday took out added insurance against the risk of a strike on Sunday at Windalco, when he got an ex parte injunction in the Supreme Court against any industrial action within the next 30 days.
The injunction was obtained within hours of an order issued by the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) yesterday morning, that the threat of industrial action be withdrawn, pending proceedings there on the dispute between Windalco (West Indies Alumina Company Limited, formerly Alcan Jamaica) and the National Workers Union (NWU).
The ploy seemed to have worked as NWU deputy island supervisor, Norman DaCosta, who represents the Windalco workers, when informed of the injunction last night, suggested that the strike threat would be immediately withdrawn. Mr. Dacosta had said following the IDT meeting that the notice would remain in place pending a workers' decision. He had also sought the intervention of Prime Minister P.J. Patterson.
"In view of the injunction, we will have to communicate this to the workers right away. We can't go against the court's ruling. We would do so at our own peril. We don't want to run afoul of the law," he said last night.
The union had planned meetings with the workers this morning at the company's three plants -- Port Esquivel, Ewarton and Kirkvine.
The 72-hour strike notice, which the union issued to Windalco on Wednesday, a requirement under the industry's Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), would have ended Sunday at 8 a.m. It would have left the company subject to a strike by unionised hourly paid workers at any time after that.
The dispute between the union and the company involves the Personal Income Protection (PIP) agreement, under which the bauxite/alumina companies pay the workers lump sums to make up for falls in the exchange rate between the Jamaican and US dollars. The company wants the agreement expunged from a new 33-month contract which was being negotiated at the Ministry of Labour. The union is insisting that the workers would come out of the talks worse off without the PIP.
Mr. Peart referred the matter to the IDT on Thursday after the conciliatory talks at the Ministry, chaired by industrial relations director Gresford Smith, broke down.
The IDT met yesterday and issued an order that the industrial action threatened by the 72-hour strike notice should not take place, while the matter is being discussed there.
Within an hour, lawyers for the Ministry, headed by Solicitor General Michael Hylton, turned up at the Supreme Court seeking an ex parte injunction restraining the union from carrying out the strike threat.
The application named the NWU and its chief delegates at Ewarton, Port Esquivel and Kirkvine, Barrington Hudson, Bertram Peart and Trevor Hewitt, respectively, as respondents.
Justice Marva McIntosh granted the injunction which stated:
The employees of the West Indies Alumina Company Limited be restrained for a period of 30 days from commencing industrial action in the form of withdrawing their labour or otherwise;
The Respondents are restrained for period of thirty days from causing, encouraging, instigating or participating in any such industrial action.
