Given the growing number of labor disputes, Bahamas Bar Association President Elsworth Johnson has called  for the Industrial Tribunal to become the labor component of the Supreme Court. Johnson noted that former Chief Justice Sir Burton Hall had proposed since 2002 that the Industrial Tribunal transition into the Industrial side of the Supreme Court.
Johnson said the failure to act on this proposal to give the tribunal the powers of Supreme Court judges shows that "labor and poor people are not a priority for the government".

Johnson noted that the Industrial Tribunal is backlogged to 2010. Even when the tribunal gives a ruling, it has to be enforced by the Supreme Court. In order to serve on the tribunal, members are required to have the same 10 years of practice at the bar as judges appointed to the Supreme Court. In a 2004 address, Tribunal President Harrison Lockhart called for increased powers as he decried the poor conditions under which members of the tribunal have to sit.

"We are aware that the honorable chief justice has proposed inter alia that the Industrial Tribunal be metamorphosed into an industrial side of the Supreme Court, and it is our understanding that his proposal was submitted to government since October of 2002," Lockhart said. "To date, we are not aware as to whether the proposal was favorably considered or otherwise. If such a proposal were effectuated all of the tribunal's concerns relative to its lack of authority/jurisdiction in certain areas would fall away.

"Currently the tribunal cannot award costs in any circumstances; we cannot enforce our own decisions; we cannot cite parties for contempt and we cannot grant injunctions. If we became an industrial side of the Supreme Court we would ipso facto possess all of the inherent powers of the court including those enumerated. It is envisioned by the chief justice that the industrial side of the Supreme Court would have its own procedural rules and that matters would proceed along a special track commencing at a magisterial level with appeals lying to the district court and high court respectively.

"Informality in proceedings now currently before the Industrial Tribunal could be preserved in the context of the rules of the industrial side of the Supreme Court. Indeed it might be argued that this proposal makes everyone a winner."

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