Oilfields Workers' Trade Union v v. T. Geddes Grant (Trinidad) Ltd

• Jurisdiction: Trinidad & Tobago
• Judge: Elock, J.
• Judgment Date: 30 June 1993
• Court: Industrial Court (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Docket Number: No. 24 of 1991
• Date: 30 June 1993

Industrial Court

Elcock, J.

No. 24 of 1991

Oilfields Workers' Trade Union

and

T. Geddes Grant (Trinidad) Ltd.

Appearances:

Mr. Gregory Rousseau, Labour Relations Officer for Party No. 1.

Mr. Seenath Jairam attorney at-law for Party No. 2

Industrial law - Contract of service — Terms and conditions of employment — Dispute concerning failure to pay arrears of salary and severance pay to various workers — Workers retrenched — Collective agreement — Expiration of agreement — Whether increased wages and benefits of new agreement to be applied retroactively — Whether retrenched workers beneficiaries of new collective agreement — Retrenched workers signing acknowledgement of full and final settlement — Company relying on estoppel, pacta sunt servanda, and doctrine that debt owed may be discharged by payment and acceptance of smaller sum — Company's arguments rejected — Ordered that retrenched workers to be paid retroactive salary increases and increased severance payments based on salary increases.

Statute - Industrial Relations Act, 1972, s. 47(2) — Expired collective agreement constituting terms and conditions of employment of each worker — Section 2(i) — Definition of worker includes retrenched worker — S. 35(a) — Trade union certified as recognized majority union have exclusive authority to bargain collectively — Retrenched workers given discharge document amounting to violation of provision — Section 43(5) — Prohibits exclusion or limitation of application of collective agreement.

Elock, J.

1 By a written Statement of Evidence and Arguments filed herein on 14th June, 1991 pursuant to pre-trial directions of the Court, the Oilfields Workers' Trade Union (“the Union”) alleges that T. Geddes Grant (Trinidad) Limited (“the Company”) has wrongfully failed and refused to pay arrears of salary and severance pay to a number of its former employees (“the retrenched workers”) who were retrenched by the Company during the years 1985 and 1986.

2 The Union contends that “the decision by the Company to deny the retrenched workers their adjusted salary and severance benefits for the period 1st January. 1985 to 31st December, 1987 [sic] was harsh, oppressive and contrary to good industrial relations practices.” and is seeking an Order that the Company do pay these benefits to the retrenched workers in accordance with terms of the collective agreement between the parties, which covers the period 1985 to 1987.

3 The Company for its part, in a like statement Evidence and Arguments filed herein on 14th June 1991, contends that the Union's claim is without merit and should be dismissed; for the following reasons:

• (a) At the time of their retrenchment, each of the retrenched workers signed a written acknowledgment that the severance benefits then paid to him/her by the Company was “in full and final, settlement of all monies due, owing and payable as severance pay and Other payments.”

• (b) The severance benefits were calculated on the basis of salaries existing at the time of the workers' retrenchment.

• (c) The salary increases payable to the workers in the bargaining unit represented by the Union were granted by an award of the Court in Trade Dispute Mo. 54 of 1986 and in those proceedings no submissions were made by either party with respect to the retrenched workers, and the Court's judgment in that dispute made no reference to the retrenched workers.

• (d) In the Company's own words “The retrenched workers have no contractual or legal right, (privity of contract) to or justification far making the claim hewn. Further, as a matter of equity and good conscience, the aggrieved workers ought not to be permitted to renege on the receipt issued that is they cannot approbate and reprobate.

4 The Company is a well established corporation engaged in the distribution of a wide range of commercial products and the Union is the recognised majority Union as defined by the Industrial Relations Act Chapter 88:01 (“the Act”) for the bargaining unit which comprises the monthly paid workers of the Company.

5 The facts of this matter are not in dispute. In or about the month September of 1987, negotiations between the parties for the conclusion of a collective agreement (“the 1985 agreement”) to cover the period 1st January, 1985 to 31st December, 1987 resulted in agreement on all but three of the various items involved. As a result, the three outstanding items (i.e. (1) Job security, (2) Cost of living allowance and (3) Salaries) were eventually referred to this Court by way of Trade Dispute No. 54 of 1986. The Court in its judgment delivered in that dispute on 6th May, 1988 ordered that the Cost of Living Allowance payable at 31st December 1984 be consolidated with salaries being paid at that date and that the new salaries so obtained be increased by 2% for each of the years 1985, 1986 and 1987.

6 However, on various dates during the period 24th July. 1985 and 14th August, 1986 the Company lawfully retrenched at least forty-five of the workers belonging to the bargaining unit represented by the Union and paid them the severance pay due to them in accordance with the relevant provisions of the collective agreement between the parties which had expired on 31st December, 1984 (“the 1982 agreement”) but which by virtue of the provisions of Section 47 (2) of the Act constituted the terms, and conditions of the individual contract of employment of each worker within the bargaining unit with which we are herein concerned. No evidence was presented to the Court of the precise date when negotiations for the new collective agreement were commenced, but it is clear that at least some of the retrenched workers were separated from the Company while these negotiations were still at the bilateral stage. In this connection, a letter written to the Union by they Company on 27th November, 1985 is of some significance. The text of this letter is as follows:

“27th November, 1985

Mr. Gregory Rousseau,

Labour Relations Officer,

Oilfields Workers' Trade Union,

143, Charlotte Street,

PORT OF SPAIN.

7 Dear Sir,

8 In connection with a query raised by your Union at a meeting on the 25th November, 1985, please be advised as follows:

9 The Company's interpretation of Article 41 (v) is that Severance Pay is to be calculated on the final basic salary of the worker concerned at the time of termination. Should that salary be modified subsequently without reservation regarding the particular worker, then such modified salary becomes the final basic salary and adjustments made accordingly.

10 However, the above interpretation is subject to the final outcome of negotiations now in progress between the parties.

Yours faithfully,

For and on behalf of:

T. GEDDES GRANT (T' DAD) LIMITED.

Percy Cezair

Consultant.”

11 These then are the facts. I turn now to the contentious issues and the evidence and the arguments put forward by both ides.

12 At paragraph 5 of its statement of Evidence and Arguments the Company contended that in Trade Dispute No. 54 of 1986 already referred to “…the Company's position on wages was very specific, in that it stated that the bargaining unit comprises approximately fifty-five employees and during the course of proceedings both the company's and the Union's submission on wages restricted to the workers currently employed, that is no submissions were made to the court by either party that the retrenched workers were to be covered by the court's award …”

13 In answer to this, Mr. Rousseau for the Union, put forward a number of arguments with which I an in full agreement. He argued that during the initial bilateral negotiations between the company and the Union for the 1985 agreement the Union had made it clear that the retrenched workers were to be included in any decision to grant increased salaries and benefits. In support of this he referred to the letter dated 27th November, 1985 the text of which was reproduced earlier in this judgment.

14 He also cited the decision of this Court in I.C.A. No. 1 of 1987 between the Oilfields Workers' Trade Union and Hydrocarb Corporation in which the issues of fact and law were identical to those raised in the instant dispute and the Court held that increased wages and benefits of a new collective agreement were to be applied retroactively to all workers who were members of the bargaining unit during any of the years covered by that new agreement. The court went on to say in that case that in order to avoid such retrospective application, there would have to be an express exclusionary provision in such a new collective agreement but, Mr. Rousseau argued that any such provision would be rendered void by the Act. He painted out that Section 2 (i) of the Act specifically includes a retrenched employee in the definition of “worker” for the purposes of the Act and that Section 48 (5) enacts that:

“The following terms in any collective agreement are void … (b) any clause excluding or limiting the application of the provisions of this Act or of the agreement.”

15 It was also argued for the Union that by Article 8 of the 1985 agreement the Company had obligated itself to pay the increased salaries stipulated in that agreement to all workers who were on the Company's payroll for any of the years covered by the agreement i.e. 1985, 1986, and 1987. The said Article 8 (ii) stipulates that:

“… The rates of pay and. conditions of employment in this agreement are to be regarded as normal, but, the Company may grant more favourable rates and conditions of employment to workers. However, under no circumstances shall the Company apply rates and conditions less favourable than those provided in this agreement.”

16 As I have already indicated, I am in entire agreement with these submissions of the Union. The plain and...