Keynote Address by
Her Honour Mrs. Heather Seale
President, Industrial Court of Trinidad and Tobago
at the Employers Solution Centre’s Seminar
On Landmark Court Judgments 2026: “From Judgment to Action: Building Better IR and HR Systems”
Thank you for the kind invitation, once again, to deliver the Feature Address at this your annual Landmark Court Judgments Seminar on this year’s theme, “The Court and Workplace Transformation: Balancing Rights and Productivity.”
The wider objective of today’s seminar moving from judgment to action and building better industrial relations and human resource systems is both practical and timely. It accords with the Industrial Court’s overarching objective as expressed in the long title of the Industrial Relations Act, Chapter 88:01 (“the IRA”), which is to make better provision for the stabilisation, improvement and promotion of industrial relations.
As you may know, the Court fulfils its mandate by facilitating parties in conciliation and by adjudicating in open hearings. The jurisprudence of the Court developed over its sixty- one years of existence provides a rich body of judicial work on the principles and practices of good industrial relations, which offer practical guidance to employers, trade unions and workers.
My assignment this morning is to focus on: -
1. The role of judicial interpretation of labour laws in shaping contemporary workplace relations;
2. Strategies for productive, equitable and law-compliant workplaces in a VUCAH environment;
3. And also to offer a practical Human Resource checklist for managing performance and productivity with procedural fairness.