Labor Court rules against LISGIS, orders Census House to pay US$450,800 to former workers
MONROVIA – The National Labor Court has ruled in favor of the former workers Liberia Institute of Statistic and Geo-information (LISGIS) in the long running case over illegal termination of contract between the workers and the management of LISGIS.
The workers include cartographers, supervisors and assistant supervisor of LISGIS.
It can be recalled on May 23, 2022, the former workers filed a formal complaint of unfair labor practices with the Ministry of Labor against the management of LISGIS on allegations of illegal termination of their seven-month employment contracts without cause or jurisdiction to do so.
The former workers claimed that they wrote the Executive Director of LISGIS claiming full payment of their unexpired seven-month salaries, and payment of work done for additional four months that they earned upon the expiration of said employment contract.
According to court documents, both parties could not reach a compromise during the court pretrial conference, and as a result, the matter was ruled into a full-scale investigation on merit.
It continued that two notices were served on the former workers and LISGIS, but Statistics House failed to turnout without any form of excuse to warrant continuance of the investigation.
The court documents noted that the ruling is in section 9.5 and section 10.1 (b) of the decent work act of Liberia which says “a person aggrieved by the decision of the ministry may appeal against that order within thirty days after service of the order on the parties”.
It also revealed that the Management did not take any steps necessary to perfect its appeal to the court, within a statutory period of thirty days, saying the management did not challenge the hearing officers’ final ruling as an admission or concession to the averment of the practitioners’ complaints.
Meanwhile, the Labor Court has ordered the management of LISGIS to pay in full US$450,800 for additional four months of work done and the unexpired portion of the seven-months employment contract, to prevent any miscarriage of justice against the petitioners.
