The established principle stated in the title of this article was cited on page 16 of a recent judgment (ESD TD NOS 81 &82 of 2021) between the Public Services Association and Water and Sewerage Authority.

The merits of the case were quite interesting, and I totally agree with the court's assessments and understood why it gave the award it did.

My concern, however, is that the award may send a wrong message to errant workers who misconduct themselves.

The facts surrounding the case were that two WASA workers, one with 18 and the other with 32 years of service, were dismissed for abandoning their jobs.

According to the judgment on page 20, one of these workers had actually applied for pandemic leave 'until further notice,' which may have raised the presumption of 'implicit intention' that the worker had abandoned the job.

One of the workers admitted to being on pandemic leave for 15 months, and still received her full salary while she did not work. Her excuse was that she could not find suitable childcare for her 13-year-old and ten-year-old children.

Added to this, with monthly earnings of $22,799, she claimed she did not have a computer to access the company's server at home.

She also indicated that for some years she had applied to be transferred to the Chaguanas branch. However, when this was eventually offered to her as a means of getting her back to work, she still refused to do so.

The other worker applied for pandemic leave for 14 months and during that time worked from home for approximately only three months. Her reason for not returning to work was that she too could find no suitable care for her two minor children.

In its reasoning, the court asked and answered the question whether WASA acted in a manner consistent with the principles and practices of good industrial relations. The court concluded that it did 'to a very large extent.'

Where WASA erred was in saying to the offending workers that it would initiate job-abandonment proceedings by a deadline date if they did not report for work, then, without any further steps, on the next day, issued termination letters.

The court found that given that WASA knew where the workers lived, it should have invited them and their representatives to disciplinary proceedings, even though WASA allowed them to appeal their dismissals. Because of this failure, the court held that it breached the principles of good industrial relations practice.

Now, many people may believe WASA was right to dismiss the workers, as it made several attempts to negotiate suitable work arrangements with them, via written correspondence which the workers ignored. These workers were being paid substantial salaries and doing no work for more than a year.

However, as the old saying goes, it is not what was done, but how it is done. Dismissing the workers on the day after the deadline cannot be consistent with initiating job-abandonment proceedings, although such proceedings themselves may have been misconceived.

It is, however, very clear in my m