(Trinidad Guardian) Cash-strapped steel manufacturer ArcelorMittal has been fined by the Industrial Court for the procedure it used in laying off over 500 of its employees in December last year.
Delivering judgment at the court’s headquarters, St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain, on Thursday afternoon, its president Deborah Thomas-Felix criticised the multinational company for failing to discuss the temporary cost-cutting method with the Steel Workers’ Union before it was implemented.
While Thomas-Felix and her three colleagues agreed that the company was allowed to send workers home temporarily in a bid to “rectify its precarious economic position,” it could only do so if it gave the union advance notice and an opportunity to counter the proposal.
She added: “There is not a scintilla of evidence to justify layoffs without proper consultation other than disdain for orderly negotiations and good industrial relations practices. “Having the right to lay off does not mean it can be applied arbitrarily or unfairly.”
According to the evidence presented in the case, the company admitted that the lay-off was part of its financial restructuring as its profits had dwindled over the past two years due to a worldwide drop in steel prices.
In October, last year, the company proposed that its workers take their vacation leave to facilitate the reduction in production at its Point Lisas plant.
The union requested time from the company to solicit the views of the workers on the issue, but while doing so, the company contacted workers directly, threatening a lay-off if the proposal was not accepted.
The workers were eventually laid off on December 7, leading the union to file the case against the company for failing to properly inform it of the proposal and for bypassing it by negotiating directly with its members.
The company was fined TT$20,000 for the former and TT$4,000 for the latter offence after being found guilty by the court yesterday. In its judgment, the court also ruled that the company acted unfairly towards the workers by attempting to force them to take the vacation proposal as deciding when to take their vacation was one of their fundamental rights.
“The big stick approach by the company in forcing the vacation leave proposal is extremely unfortunate and is against the spirit of co-operation,” Thomas-Felix said. As part of the court’s judgment it ordered the company to pay the workers’ salaries for the period of the layoff which followed the threat (December 7 to January 15).
It also reinstated the vacation leave of workers who acceded to the company’s threat before being laid off and allowed those workers who cashed in on their vacation time to keep the company’s payment as the court felt their decisions on the issue were compromised by the illegal act of the company.
