Edmund Bushell v Barbados Light & Power Company Ltd

• Jurisdiction: Barbados
• Judge: Ms Beverley Beckles,Emerson Graham,Mr Edward Bushell
• Judgment Date: 01 April 2021
• Docket Number: Case: ERT/2017/234
• Court: Employment Rights Tribunal (Barbados)

EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS TRIBUNAL

Before:

Emerson Graham, Q.C. CHAIRMAN

Mr Edward Bushell MEMBER

Ms Beverley Beckles MEMBER

Case: ERT/2017/234

Edmund Bushell

Claimant

and

Barbados Light & Power Company Limited

Respondent

APPEARANCES:

Mr John Collymore, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW FOR THE CLAIMANT

Michael Koeiman, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW FOR THE RESPONDENT

BACKGROUND

1 The Claimant, worked as an electrical technician with the Respondent Company from February 14 ^th, 2000 until December 30 ^th, 2014.

2 Most of his working life with the Respondent Company was at Seawell but from time to time he was assigned to the Spring Garden plant.

3 He was a member of the Barbados Workers Union and sometime between 2012 and 2014 when the Respondent Company sought to negotiate the Collective Bargaining Agreement he was selected as a delegate and attended the various meetings as they were called.

4 Though the Claimant was intimately involved with the new Collective Bargaining Agreement he formed the view that he could not work under those new arrangements and he informed the Human Resources Manager and the Generation Manager accordingly.

5 In November 2014 the Claimant formerly submitted a letter to the Respondent Company indicating his desire to leave the employ of the Respondent on November 28, 2014. This was followed on November 18, 2014 by a letter in which he applied for vacation leave from December 02, 2014 to December 22, 2014. That letter was approved and off he went on vacation. He never returned to work at the Respondent Company.

6 Some further correspondence passed between the parties during the final days of December 2014 and among that correspondence was the Claimant's claim that he was constructively dismissed and the Respondent's warning that if he did not return to work on December 30 ^th, 2014 with some explanation for his absence since December 23, 2014 he would be held to have abandoned his job.

ISSUES TO BE DETERMINED

Whether the Claimant abandoned his job or had been constructively dismissed.

THE CLAIMANT'S CASE

The Claimant advanced a two pronged argument to support his case that he was constructively dismissed.

1 His evidence was that there was a long standing dispute between him and a fellow worker. That worker was a Rommel Clarke who the Claimant alleged made his (the Claimant's) work environment hostile.

The evidence was rather sketchy in that the aggressor was not always named nor identified nor was the tribunal told who was responsible for calling the police when they were called.

A matter like this one would have to be put in its entirety so that the Tribunal could arrive at a fair and reasonable conclusion.

It is the view of the Tribunal that the evidence given was not of the quality or quantity needed for it to arrive at that fair and...