Former Telikom workers’ case to be heard by National Court

A CASE concerning the redundancy exercise, dubbed the “spill and fill policy” carried out at Telikom Papua New Guinea between 2015 to 2016, will return to the National Court for hearing.
This follows a Supreme Court ruling on Nov 12 which dismissed a slip rule application filed by the respondents, the Telikom management.
The respondents in the slip rule application were former chief executive officer of Telikom PNG Michael Donnelly, former chairman of the Telikom PNG board of directors Sir Mahesh Patel and Telikom.
A Supreme Court panel, comprising of Justice George Manuhu, Justice Collin Makail and Justice Hitelai Polume-Kiele, said the respondents were rehashing the arguments they had already raised at the hearing of the appeal.
“There is nothing new in the (slip rule) application,” the judges said in a written judgment.
“The respondents (Telikom) have, therefore, failed to establish or show that there is a glaring error, mistake or slip to warrant a revisit of our decision on the appeal.
“For that reason, the slip (rule) application should be dismissed with costs.”
The case had first originated in the National Court in 2016 after plaintiffs, the PNG Communication Workers Union executives led by president Nug Mamtirin filed a writ of summons on behalf of 271 retrenched employees. In 2015-2016, Telikom conducted a redundancy exercise, dubbed the “spill and fill policy”, terminating 271 Telikom employees.
The plaintiffs were aggrieved by the manner in which the redundancy exercise was done and the amounts of termination payments made to them, which they claimed were in breach of the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement 2010, a registered industrial award governing Telikom employees, still operating in 2015-2016.
They instituted proceedings against Telikom and its chief executive officer and board chairman seeking damages for breach of contract (the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement 2010) and breach of human rights.
On June 28, 2018, Justice David Cannings presiding in the National Court dismissed the case filed by the former Telikom workers.
The National Court, amongst others, held that; the proceedings were an abuse of process as the former Telikom workers (plaintiffs) failed to comply with procedural requirements for commencement of representative proceedings in that the 271 former employees whom the PNG Communication Workers Union executives led by Mamtirin and his executives claimed to represent had not each authorised those plaintiffs, and instructed the plaintiffs’ lawyers, to represent them. The former Telikom workers aggrieved by that National Court decision filed an appeal in the Supreme Court.
In December 2019, a Supreme Court panel comprising Justices Manuhu, Makail and Polume-Kiele upheld the appeal by Telikom workers.
The Supreme Court ordered the case to be remitted for hearing before another judge on the substantive merits of the claim.
However, Donnelly, Sir Mahesh and Telikom aggrieved by the Supreme Court decision to uphold the former Telikom workers appeal filed a slip rule application which was subsequently dismissed by the Supreme Court on Nov 12.