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The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) may have to pay more than $3 mil­lion to 13 con­tract work­ers it fired af­ter the 2021 elec­tions. That’s the fall­out of an In­dus­tri­al Court rul­ing de­liv­ered since April 30, which found the ter­mi­na­tions were un­fair, un­law­ful, and like­ly po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.

The court or­dered the THA to com­pen­sate the work­ers for all out­stand­ing va­ca­tion leave, pro-rat­ed gra­tu­ity, and the full val­ue of what was left on their con­tracts. The Ad­vo­cate Trade Union (ATU), which rep­re­sent­ed the group, has un­til May 29 to sub­mit a break­down of what each work­er is owed. A fi­nal court or­der will fol­low by June 30.

Some of the 13 work­ers had been em­ployed with the THA’s Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ship Unit (CPU) since 2009. But on March 31, 2022, they were all called in­to a meet­ing and hand­ed dis­missal let­ters. The THA claimed the CPU was be­ing shut down as part of a re­struc­tur­ing. But the court said it found no proof of any re­al re­struc­tur­ing—no pol­i­cy pa­pers, meet­ing min­utes, or even an up­dat­ed or­gan­i­sa­tion­al chart.