Managers and Supervisors Association of Trinidad and Tobago v Richmond Service Centre Ltd

• Jurisdiction: Trinidad & Tobago
• Judge: Khan, P.
• Judgment Date: 02 May 1991
• Court: Industrial Court (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Docket Number: 335 of 1986
• Date: 02 May 1991

Industrial Court

Khan, P.; Gafoor, M.

335 of 1986

Managers and Supervisors Association of Trinidad and Tobago

and

Richmond Service Centre Ltd.

Appearances:

Miss Carol Gobin, attorney-at-law, for party no. 1.

Mr. Chin Aleong, Managing Director, for party no. 2.

(With leave of the Court for limited purposes)

Statute - Industrial Relations Act, section 51(3) — Time limit imposed for report of trade dispute.

Statute - Minimum Wages Act, section 25 — Employer convicted of paying less than statutory minimum wage liable to pay difference between amount actually paid and statutory minimum.

Industrial law - Claim for payment of retirement benefits, overtime pay, sick benefits, vacation leave and travelling allowances of worker over period of five years — Jurisdiction of court — Claims other than that of payment for retirement benefits not referred to in report to Minister — No jurisdiction to entertain new claims — Claim for retirement benefit not established as term of employment — Dispute dismissed

Khan, P.

1 This is a trade dispute between the Managers and Supervisors Association of Trinidad and Tobago (“the Union”) and Richmond Service Center Ltd. (“the Company”). According to the Certificate of Unresolved Dispute issued to the parties by the Honourable Minister of Labour, Social Security

2 Social Security and Co-operatives (“the Minister”), the dispute: “concerns the non-payment of retirement benefits, with effect from December 31st 1985, to Ali Mohammed, Shift Operator.”

3 This was the issue which gave rise to the trade dispute which the Union reported to the Minister on 24th March, 1986.

4 Before this Court the Union sought to enlarge the scope of the trade dispute by raising additional claims of the worker which had not been re-ported to the Minister. The Union alleged that, apart from the failure of the Company to pay retirement benefits to the worker, the Company had also failed and/or refused to pay to the worker overtime pay, sick benefits, vacation leave and travelling allowances over a period of years. In support of its claim, the Union tendered copies of correspondence which passed between the worker and certain officials of the Company and a copy of the Trinidad and Tobago Gazette (Extraordinary) Vol. 21 of Wednesday, 17th November, 1982, No. 317, Notice No. 3112 - Order from Minimum Wages and Conditions of Service of Petrol Filling Station Employees Made by the Minister of Labour, Social Security and Co-operatives which was effective from 1st January, 1982. The Minimum Wages Act, Chap. 88:01 provides a procedure for the enforcement of a Minimum Wage Order. There mast be a complaint before a magistrate who is empowered to fine or imprison an employer who pays a worker less than the statutory minimum renumeration or whose terms and conditions of employment are less favourable than the terms and conditions of service: prescribed in a Minimum Wage Order.

5 Section 25 of that Act also stipulates:

“In any case where an employer has been convicted of paying less than the statutory minimum remuneration to any worker the employer shall be liable to pay to the worker a sum equal in amount to the difference between the amount actually paid as remuneration and the statutory minimum remuneration.”

6 Since it is a summary offence to pay less that the statutory minimum wages or to employ workers on terms less favourable than the terms and conditions prescribed in a Minimum Wage Order, a complaint for such an offence must be instituted within six months of the date of the alleged offence under the provisions of s.33(2) of the Summary Courts Act, Chap,...