CAL loses sick-out case against pilots’ union

The In­dus­tri­al Court has dis­missed le­gal ac­tion tak­en by Caribbean Air­lines Ltd (CAL) against the T&T Air­line Pi­lots As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA) for al­leged­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ing a sick-out protest by pi­lots in 2023.

On Thurs­day, In­dus­tri­al Court Judges Michelle Austin and An­drew Stroude found that they did not have the ju­ris­dic­tion to hear CAL’s com­plaint.

Austin, who de­liv­ered the de­ci­sion, ruled that CAL’s ac­tion un­der Sec­tion 67(2) of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act (IRA) should have been pur­sued as a sum­ma­ry of­fence be­fore a mag­is­trate in­stead of as an in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fence be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court.