KOTA KINABALU: The Industrial Court has ordered Tzu Yu Kindergarten here to pay a total of RM409,557 in compensation to its 13 teachers who were sacked about eight years ago.

Industrial Court chairman P Iruthayaraj D Pappusamy held that the kindergarten’s action against the teachers (claimants) on Dec 19, 2001 and Jan 6, 2002 constituted dismissal from their employment without a just cause or excuse.

He awarded RM409,557 to the claimants in back wages and compensation in lieu of reinstatement.

The claimants are Tah Od Ngoh, Chai Mui Ling, Chin Kim Fung, Chu Ziew Lan, Ko See Fung, Lee Chi Ling, Ng Yuk Oil @ Nancy Ng, Lee So Ngoh, Wong Mei Ngo, Ko Yee Leang, Lu Kui Chin, Lim Ean Choo and Yong Pit Mui.

According to the facts of the case, the claimants had worked for the Kindergarten for between one year and 32 years.

Their sacking resulted from the election of office bearers of the proposed 29th Executive Committee of KKCWA (which runs the Kindergarten) on May 9, 2001.

During the said election, a dispute arose and two groups emerged.

Wong Ing Hung’s group claimed that they were the elected office bearers of the Executive Committee and the other group consisting of Datin Chu Wiu Lan @ Lily Tay and Hsu Hui Ying, who was the ex-headmistress, together with the claimants claimed that they were the elected office bearers of the executive committee.

The school board headed by Wong Ing Hung terminated the employment of the claimants over their total failure to comply with the instructions of the Acting Headmistress/Board of Management since Sept 19, 2001.

The claimants were represented by counsel Roland Cheng Hu Wah, while the respondent was defended by Counsel S Vanugopal.

In his 100-page written judgment, Iruthayaraj ruled that the charges against the claimants were grossly defective and bad in law as they did not state, among other things, material particulars as regard the content and nature of instructions from the acting headmistress/board of management.

He said the truth of the whole matter lies in the fact that the termination of the claimants was motivated by the personal interest of Wong Ing Hung (COW-5) only and not that of the respondent (Tzu Yu Kindergarten).

“COW-5 was in fact obsessed with the notion that those who had opposed her in the KKCWA elections must be removed from the School at all costs and she translated that notion into a reality when she dismissed the claimants.”

After having considered the evidence in its totality and the written submissions of counsels for both parties, Iruthayaraj held that the respondent has failed to discharge its legal burden of proof with regard to the allegations made against the claimants.

“Therefore, the Court comes to the conclusion that the respondent’s dismissal of the claimants was without just cause and excuse,” he said.

On the issue of remedy, Iruthayaraj said that considering the fact that Wong Ing Hung is still in the respondent’s employment, it is certainly not conducive to the remedy of reinstatement for the claimants.

The other factor is that a number of the claimants are already reaching the age of 55 and they have been away from the teaching profession for some time, thus it is not appropriate to consider them for the remedy of reinstatement.

“In the circumstances, the claimants instead will be awarded compensation under two heads, namely backwages and compensation in lieu of reinstatement,” he added.