Hj. Mohd. Eusoffe Chin J:

The two issues before the Industrial Court for determination are:

(1) whether the 35 teachers (claimants) were dismissed or not by the Han Chiang High School.

(2) If they had been so dismissed whether the dismissals were with just cause and excuse.

For the school, it was argued that the teachers were given 2 years fixed term contracts, and for the purpose of this application, the contracts were from 1 January 1985 to 31 December 1986 and that by effluxion of time the contracts expired on 31 December 1986. The school also said that before the expiry of the contracts, it had given notice to each teacher that his service agreement with each teacher would expire on 31 December 1986. The school then on 10 December 1986 published a notification in Kwong Wah Jit Poh that it was recruiting teachers for 1987 and invited those interested, to apply. It claimed that the 35 teachers did not apply and therefore they were not taken in. The school claimed that these 35 teachers were not taken back by the school not because they were union members, since the school in fact took back 12 teachers who were union members.

For the 35 teachers, it was argued that the school h