Private Power Operators loses final legal battle in redundancy dispute with workers

The over a decade-long legal battle between Private Power Operators Limited and a small group of workers whose positions were made redundant came to an end on Tuesday when the country’s final court dismissed the last legal challenge available to the company.

The United Kingdom-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) also ruled, in a judgment handed down on Tuesday, that it was not appropriate to remit the case to the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) in Jamaica.

It marked the end of a dispute that began in 2013 after the management of Private Power Operators Ltd made the positions of nine employees redundant as part of what it said was a restructuring exercise to address “difficult challenges” facing the company at the time.

However, the National Workers Union (NWU) and the Union of Clerical, Administrative and Supervisory Employees (UCASE), which jointly represented the workers, raised objections, claiming that the process followed by the company was in breach of Jamaica’s labour laws.

The unions contended that there were no consultations by the company on the redundancy exercise and the criteria that would be used to select the employees to be terminated, in breach of the Labour Relations Code.

They also claimed that the redundancy exercise was an attempt at union-busting, disclosing that nearly all the terminated employees were union delegates.

The Ministry of Labour referred the matter to the IDT, which found, in April 2016, that the redundancies were “unjustified”, though it acknowledged that Private Power Operators Ltd had established that a genuine redundancy situation existed at the time.

“The Tribunal, taking into consideration all the circumstances of this dispute…finds that the company fell down in its management of the consultation process with respect to the redundancies,” the IDT concluded.

It found, too, that the selection process for the terminated workers was done in a manner that was “lacking in transparency” and not in compliance with the relevant stipulations in the collective labour agreement between the company and its employees.

Private Power Operators Limited was ordered by the IDT to reinstate the employees within 21 days and pay them the equivalent of 52 weeks’ wages. Those who were not reinstated were to receive 130 weeks’ of wages minus deductions of redundancy payments, the three-member panel of the tribunal also ordered.

The JCPC said the IDT was “fully entitled” to conclude that the dismissals were unjustified on the basis that the selection criteria had not been adequately discussed before the employees were chosen.

Private Power Operators Limited’s legal challenges before the local Judicial Review Court and Court Appeal were also unsuccessful.

However, the Judicial Review Court found that the IDT erred in construing that section 11 of the Labour Code stipulates that consultation only begins where an employer informs the unions that redundancies are “definitely on”.

The court was also critical of the unions, finding that they were “tardy” in how they handled Private Power Operators Limited’s invitations for consultations and accused them of frustrating attempts by the company to engage in consultation.

The conclusion was overturned by the Court of Appeal.

The JCPC said the Court of Appeal “correctly” found that the judge of the Judicial Review Court “erred on that point”.

But the law Lords agreed with the Court of Appeal that the IDT’s analysis of the case was not undermined by the erroneous interpretation of the Labour Code.

Editor's note: A previous version of this story erroneously named Jamaica Private Power Company as the appellants in the case. However, the case did not involve the JPPC but a separate company, Private Power Operators Ltd.

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