Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHE UNITED Kingdom Privy Council has thrown out an appeal brought by United Estates Ltd., one of the largest citrus farms in the island, and Mark McConnell, its managing director, in which they were seeking to have their convictions for union-busting overturned.
In April 1997, they were convicted of breaches of the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act (LRIDA), and were fined. Resident Magistrate Jennifer Straw, after hearing evidence in the Spanish Town Court, found them guilty of dismissing and penalising workers for exercising their right to be members of a trade union.
The company was fined a total of $6,000 for three breaches of the LRIDA. Mr. McConnell was fined a total of $6,000 or 30 days' imprisonment for three breaches of the Act.
They appealed against their convictions, but Mr. Justice Henderson Downer, Mr. Justice Paul Harrison and Mr. Justice Ransford Langrin (now retired), sitting in the Court of Appeal, dismissed the appeals in July last year.
In September 2001 the appellants applied to the Court of Appeal for leave to take the matter to the United Kingdom Privy Council.
When the application came up for hearing before the Court of Appeal, Kent Pantry, Q.C., Director of Public Prosecutions, took a preliminary point that the application had been filed out of time. Mr. Pantry said that the application was not filed until September 20 this year. He pointed out that the judgment was handed down on July 30 this year and the application should have been filed within the next 21 days.
The Court of Appeal, comprising the Hon. Ian Forte, President, Mr. Justice Ransford Langrin and Mr. Justice Algernon Smith, upheld the submissions.
The appellants went by special leave to the United Kingdom Privy Council but lost their appeal yesterday. The appellants had appealed against Court of Appeal's ruling which upheld the convictions against the company and its managing director.
Evidence was given at the trial that from February 1994 to June 1994, several workers employed by United Estates, Bog Walk, St. Catherine, who joined the National Workers' Union, were harassed, threatened with dismissal and asked to sign a document dissociating themselves from the union.
Following the convictions, the company and Mr. McConnell appealed on the ground that the Resident Magistrate had allowed inadmissible evidence to be adduced at the trial. But, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and ruled that the Resident Magistrate was correct in her findings.
NWU island supervisor Vincent Morrison said yesterday that the union has written the company since the Privy Council's decision on Thursday seeking a meeting to discuss the future of the workers who were dismissed.
