GSLP/Liberal Opposition yesterday reiterated its view that Government is the true employer of Joanna Hernandez and should give her a job as recommended by the Industrial Tribunal chairman.
In a statement the Opposition, whose leader Joe Bossano represented Ms Hernandez at the Tribunal, said it noted that the Government considers that it is free to make policy statements on the question of the unfair dismissal of Ms Hernandez, “but that if the Opposition puts forward its view this is considered politicking.” The Opposition accused the GSD Government of holding the view that it is the only party entitled to express an opinion.
The Opposition yesterday restated its view that the Government of Gibraltar is the employer of all the persons in the pubic service, which includes all the statutory agencies and authorities. It says that this is the position that the Government itself has maintained in Parliament when it has drawn a distinction between public servants and civil servants.
“The fact that the Government chooses to have different conditions of employment for persons who are civil servants and persons who are public servants does not mean that the latter are employed by some extraneous body and that it is not the taxpayer of Gibraltar which funds all of these organisations,” said the Opposition.
And it said that to suggest that it is wholly untrue, for example, that persons in the Social Services Agency are employed by the Government, is “complete rubbish”.
“Nobody can be employed in the Social Services Agency without the Minister seeking the permission of the head of the civil service to issue the contract of employment,” said a spokesman.
“When this amendment to the agency was introduced in Parliament, it was to remove from the agency the freedom to employ people without the prior permission of the Government, notwithstanding the fact that the Minister chairs the board of the agency and selects the board members,” said the Opposition.
The spokesman said that the hundreds of workers in Government funded and controlled statutory bodies “all think of themselves as Government employees”, albeit not on civil service conditions.
If the Government says that employees of such bodies cannot be transferred to civil service posts in the Government, then they need to explain why this cannot be done when it has happened in the past on some occasions when the Government has chosen to do so, said the spokesman.
He said that the Government decision not to accept the Tribunal recommendation “is something that they have to answer for politically since it is a policy decision, but this is obvious since by definition the legislation itself permits the Tribunal to make a recommendation that is not binding. If it were binding then the Government would not have been free to take the decision whether or not to accept it.”
“It is not the rejection of the recommendation that is disrespect for the tribunal, it is the text of the press release issued by the Government when it ridiculed the Tribunal and it ridiculed the chairman. This was totally uncalled for and it reflects the attitude of the Government that anyone who says something that they do not agree with has to be attacked for doing so,” they said.
“It is certainly not true that it is neither possible nor appropriate for the Government to accept the Tribunal recommendation, given that it did not ask the Government to offer Ms Hernandez civil service terms of employment, but simply to retain the terms of employment she already enjoyed in the agency.”
The Opposition states that it is in the gift of the Government to offer employment to whoever they choose in any of the authorities or agencies, and also to have people who are not on civil service terms working alongside other employees who are not on civil service terms and they do this constantly whenever they choose to.
“The only reason that the Government has not offered reengagement as recommended by the Chairman, is simply that, although they have not been able to produce any evidence to justify the dismissal of Joanna Hernandez, they nonetheless do not want her anywhere in the structure of the public service.”
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