TIWU threatens escalation over PTSC’s “unjust” dismissal of worker

OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

Pres­i­dent of the Trans­port In­dus­tri­al Work­ers Union (TI­WU), Shawn Roberts, says the union is pre­pared to in­ten­si­fy its protest ac­tion if it does not meet with the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion’s (PTSC) Gen­er­al Man­ag­er and se­cure the with­draw­al of a dis­missal let­ter is­sued to a work­er.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Roberts said the protest, which saw union mem­bers move through the City Gate trans­port hub call­ing for a meet­ing with PTSC Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Patrick Gomez, was trig­gered by what he de­scribed as an un­just ter­mi­na­tion.

“All the union is ask­ing for is Mr. Gomez to meet with us and re­tract that let­ter. That is dra­con­ian mea­sures, that is puni­tive mea­sures,” Roberts said.

“If we don’t meet Mr. Gomez to­day and that let­ter is not re­tract­ed by to­day, to­mor­row is an­oth­er day and to­mor­row we will be in­ten­si­fy­ing what is tak­ing place here to­day.”

Pro­vid­ing de­tails of the case, Roberts claimed the work­er was dis­missed for al­leged theft of oil with­out suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence.

“The work­er was ter­mi­nat­ed for al­leged theft in oil. You can­not fire a work­er for theft in oil when you nev­er caught him with any oil, and you nev­er pre­sent­ed the oil at the dis­ci­pli­nary hear­ing,” he said.

He added that the em­ploy­ee had been on sus­pen­sion for a year be­fore the mat­ter con­clud­ed.

“This com­rade has been on sus­pen­sion for a whole year. Last year Jan­u­ary he was sus­pend­ed, mid-Ju­ly he had a dis­ci­pli­nary hear­ing, and to­day he was giv­en a ter­mi­na­tion let­ter,” Roberts said.

The TI­WU pres­i­dent ar­gued that al­low­ing the dis­missal to stand would set a dan­ger­ous prece­dent for oth­er work­ers.

“We can­not stand by idly and let this or­gan­i­sa­tion set up a prece­dent. Be­cause if that hap­pens to one, it could hap­pen to all,” he said.

Roberts said the union’s ex­ec­u­tive went to City Gate to show sol­i­dar­i­ty and press man­age­ment to re­verse the de­ci­sion.

“We’re stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the work­er. We can­not fire a work­er with­out ev­i­dence. That is puni­tive mea­sures, that is wrong, that is not jus­tice,” he said.

He al­so raised con­cern about the work­er’s per­son­al cir­cum­stances, say­ing the em­ploy­ee has six chil­dren and more than a decade of ser­vice.

“Six­teen years the gen­tle­man work­ing here. What will be­come of this work­er?” Roberts asked, point­ing to the lengthy time­lines of­ten as­so­ci­at­ed with mat­ters be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court.

Pressed on the union’s next step, Roberts said: “We’re go­ing to the end. We’re go­ing to the end. Mr. Gomez has to leave this or­gan­i­sa­tion. Enough is enough.”

TI­WU Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ryan Ram­dath said the union does not ex­pect dis­rup­tions to pub­lic trans­port ser­vices but in­sist­ed that the is­sue must be ad­dressed ur­gent­ly.

“We do not ex­pect to cause any dis­rup­tions to the ser­vice, but an in­jus­tice has tak­en place here to­day,” Ram­dath said, while al­so call­ing for pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to reach Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Patrick Gomez, but he did not re­spond to the union’s claims or in­di­cate whether a meet­ing would take place.

The Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion con­firmed the ter­mi­na­tion of an em­ploy­ee af­ter what it de­scribed as a thor­ough in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion and tri­bunal process.

It was con­firmed via a press re­lease by the cor­po­ra­tion that the de­ci­sion fol­lowed the con­clu­sion of a for­mal in­ter­nal re­view con­duct­ed in ac­cor­dance with es­tab­lished in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions pro­ce­dures.

Ac­cord­ing to PTSC, the mat­ter was as­sessed through a tri­bunal, which made a rec­om­men­da­tion sup­port­ed by le­gal ad­vice.

The cor­po­ra­tion says it is sat­is­fied that all ap­pro­pri­ate process­es were fol­lowed be­fore the ter­mi­na­tion was fi­nalised.

The state­ment said the union has ex­pressed dis­agree­ment with the out­come. How­ev­er, PTSC ac­knowl­edged the union’s po­si­tion while main­tain­ing that due process was ob­served through­out.

The cor­po­ra­tion al­so re­it­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to eth­i­cal con­duct, trans­paren­cy and the pro­tec­tion of its as­sets, say­ing all mat­ters are han­dled in a fair and pro­ce­du­ral­ly sound man­ner.

PTSC says it will not pro­vide fur­ther de­tails, cit­ing con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and pri­va­cy oblig­a­tions.