Freeport employment tribunal denies B$72 wage claim over Saturday marked as training

The Employment tribunal serving Freeport has denied Denise Rolle’s claim for B$72 against Harbour Basket Supplies Ltd., finding that she had not proved six Saturday hours were payable work. No payment was ordered.

The dispute was not about whether Rolle attended the shop: both sides accepted that she was there from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on 10 January 2026. The question was whether she worked while learning, as she maintained, or attended unpaid training, as the employer classified it.

The tribunal found that the two central documents answered different questions, but neither established what Rolle actually did that Saturday. Her signed attendance sheet reliably proved her presence, not her tasks. A pencilled training annotation carried limited weight because its author and date were unknown.

The payroll record established the ordinary hourly rate of B$12 and payment of B$144 for twelve other hours. Its separate entry recording Saturday’s six hours at B$0 showed the employer’s accounting treatment—not Rolle’s agreement to unpaid time or the activities she performed.

The tribunal considered Rolle’s account specific and consistent. But no other record or identified person confirmed her customer-help tasks, and the manager’s invitation she described was not produced as a document.

Harbour Basket’s failure to provide a detailed training account or supporting evidence weakened its position. That gap did not itself prove Rolle’s claim, however. Because she bore the burden of establishing payable work, the unresolved uncertainty defeated her request.

The arithmetic was undisputed: six hours at B$12 would amount to B$72. But a correct calculation could not establish an entitlement to wages without proof that the hours were payable.

Rolle said the manager’s invitation asked her to help customers and that she did so while learning. She argued that the payroll classification did not show she had agreed to work without pay.

She acknowledged that the invitation did not expressly promise payment, that she had not asked about pay beforehand, and that her account of helping customers had no separate confirmation. She sought only B$72.

Harbour Basket maintained that Saturday was optional training and relied on the attendance and payroll records. Its submissions also acknowledged that payroll alone could not determine what happened during the session or whether wages were legally payable.

Rolle accepted receiving B$144 for twelve ordinary hours; her claim concerned only the additional Saturday session. The tribunal decided the matter on the existing record, with no further obtainable evidence identified and no adjournment allowed.

The ruling resolves that wage claim without affirmatively establishing that Harbour Basket’s training classification was true. Its central distinction is between proof of attendance, proof of an employer’s accounting, and proof that the time was payable work.