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Court orders arbitration again for sacked Skeldon estate worker
Weeks after a controversial ruling, a sugar worker from Berbice is to have another shot at being reinstated at the Skeldon estate where he had been working.
Arbitrator,
Mohamed Akeel
This is because a court has ruled that the stand-off between the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU) be referred again to arbitration.
Lawyers for the worker, Daniel Stephen, GAWU and GuySuCo yesterday appeared before Chief Justice, Ian Chang.
Both GAWU and GuySuCo will now have to decide if they will continue using Mohamed Akeel who was the arbitrator in the matter, and whose ruling spurred the union to take the matter to the court in the first place.
Since September, the dismissal of the worker has divided the union and GuySuCo after the latter refused to reinstate the mill dock worker. The stand-off led to strikes and widespread power outages across the coast after the Skeldon co-generation plant was unable to produce power.
Initially, the matter went to conciliation, and after that failed, it was referred to arbitration, with Akeel, a former Chief Labour Officer, appointed to examine the matter.
According to GAWU, the nine-page report by the Arbitrator, released during a press conference in December is
GAWU’s General Secretary, Seepaul Narine
rather confusing, and is also of concern.
“A run-of-the-mill labour dispute which could have been settled weeks ago with the guidance from the Ministry of Labour was, for some unfathomable reason, not favoured by GuySuCo,” said GAWU’s General Secretary, Seepaul Narine.
The union had immediately signaled its intentions to take the matter to court. It did so in late January.
Stephen and his union, GAWU, filed separate applications in the High Court, and were granted interim injunctions that compel GuySuCo to treat the worker as suspended without pay rather than being dismissed – that is, until the court case is heard.
In his case, Stephen has named GuySuCo and Akeel, the Arbitrator, as the defendants.
The plaintiffs named in the GAWU case are General Secretary Seepaul Narine and Trustees, Yashomatie Rampersaud and Sattie Basdeo.
In late December, in his ruling, Akeel announced that he could not proceed further in the arbitration proceedings and was unable to determine whether the dismissal of the worker was justified.
Akeel, during the announcement of his ruling and conclusion of the dismissal of Stephen, said that he had to “bring this Arbitration to an end by ruling that Mr. Daniel Stephen remains dismissed, but whether the dismissal was justified or not, I was not allowed to determine.”
The end came to the arbitration proceedings because GAWU and GuySuCo were unable to agree whether the
Daniel Stephen
mill dock operator was dismissed or suspended.
According to Akeel, in his report, on the night of September 19, 2014, there was an incident within the vicinity of the Mill Dock at Skeldon estate involving the Estate Manager, Devendra ‘Dave’ Kumar and Daniel Stephen.
News reports had said slapping was involved. The worker was dismissed by Kumar, who confirmed same via letter the following day.
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