Former Chief Executive Officer of the Antigua and Barbuda Airport Authority (ABAA) Stanley Smith says he plans to commence legal action against his former employers.
Smith was suspended last week for one month with pay but he resigned shortly after.
“For you to suspend me for one month, what kind of integrity I have after that,” he said on the radio.
Smith has retained Industrial Relations Expert Anderson Carty to help fight what he is calling unfair dismissal.
Both Smith and Carty are taking issue with the contents of the suspension letter which accuses Smith of leaking confidential information regarding a pay audit to the Antigua Barbuda Workers Union.
Smith and the industrial relations said the report was, in fact, not confidential and that the representative union, the ABWU, was entitled to have a copy.
The Jamaican has been employed as CEO since 2012.
He will be making a case for unfair dismissal and will be seeking compensation.
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So let me get this straight. A person gets suspended for one month, pending the outcome of an investigation. The person decides to buck the intended suspension and resigns of their own free will. The person then intends to sue for unfair dismissal? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. We must be living in the twilight zone.
My guess is he will have issues with the findings or the outcome so he jumps out early. But if you choose to leave on you own, how do you sue on dismissal claims or his advisor cooking up a different pot? Let’s see how this play out.
My issue with this is why suspend the gentleman for leaking a report to the union when according to the the gentleman, who happens to be the CEO, the union was required to know of the contents of the report. Was it a situation where the political elite was trying to cover up some sort pertinent information from the workers and their representative (ABWU)?
There are so many questions surrounding this mess!!!
I am also of the view that if this CEO was so good in ensuring the airport ran so smoothly for so many years, why take such drastic actions against him so suddenly???
Oh I forgot, one of their cronies are seeking employment opportunities so they have to create space to accommodate that person.
Antigua is A Sweet Place full of lots of drama lol..
You was not fired don’t play an ass of yourself Anderson Carty you should know better you was suspended you chose to resign so keep your ass quiet and go back home
An earlier report indicated that he was “brought” here in 2012 to manage the airport. However, the report did not indicate if Cheryl’s Jeanery was the one that “brought” him here.
He was suspended with pay and then issued his resignation letter. He viewed the suspension as something that would taint his credibility for future employment prospects. He is the client of Mr. Carty.
(You were not fired) (not you was not fired)
Omg can all of you people be so daft, you don’t have to be fired for wrongful dismissal. Wow , no wonder they brought in another national to run the country
So a person resigning is “wrongful dismissal”? While a person can be constructively dismissed (which does not need a firing to take place), there is nowhere in law that a resignation counts as such. Perhaps you need to go and do some labour relations courses.
Anything to do with the employees their union representative should have received a copy of that letter/report. I remembered hearing an auditing was going on at the airport because the board believed that it is over staffs (too much employees).
Since when one is suspended and they resign, it becomes they were fired? He must have had second thoughts after his head cool off. Who fire who……Isn’t he who fired the work by resigning? Some things are just straight forward and the courts should just throw the request to hear the case out of bounds. There are natives on island that can do the job even better than him. Its only a name change as we had Aerodrome Superintendent before the rename the title.
speaking of “Aerodrome Superintendent” wasn’t one of them killed years ago? His name escapes me, but word on the street is that he had cameras set up in his home, but conveniently the recordings from the day of his murder were nowhere to be found.
What about NORMAN MANLEY INT’L AIRPORT???
If there is a charge of UNFAIR SUSPENSION, then, file that. Anderson Carty… please advise your client that he was not pushed…. he panicked and jumped. He CANNOT be compensated for that. He has just saved Antigua plenty drama in the Industrial Courts. Mr. Carty… just tell your client to go look on Craigslist for another Airport Management job or he can revert to being a Mechanical Engineer, his first discipline.
Did he remember to file for citizenship after 7yrs, 2mts?
Um….. You can be constructively dismissed even if you resign….. The resignation came because the terms of your employment changed…. Google and Wikipedia will direct you in that direction….. Will it stand up in our Industrial Court is another matter…. I do not know what our labor code says as to being constructively dismissed when one resigns….
If you honestly consider Wikipedia to be a credible source, then you fell asleep during ENG101.
Ask any college professor if they accept Wikipedia in works cited from their students.
Do you understand that the information you got from those sources would most likely be addressing US laws and not ours? Our labour laws are fundamentally different from the USA. Your assertion that “the terms of your employment changed” would not apply to Stanley Smith. It is the RIGHT of any employer to conduct an investigation into any action by any of its employees. It is also the RIGHT that, if the circumstances warrant it, an employee can be suspended during the course of such an investigation, provided that the suspension cannot exceed the a certain time frame.
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