Labour Min­is­ter Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus says draft guide­lines to pre­pare work­places for COVID-19 will be dis­cussed on Mon­day.

She was re­spond­ing to con­cerns raised that some pub­lic ser­vants were un­able to ac­cess pan­dem­ic leave.

A work­er em­ployed with the San Juan Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion said she was un­able to ac­cess pan­dem­ic leave even though she made ap­pli­ca­tions to the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer stat­ing she was a sin­gle par­ent and had no one to watch her chil­dren be­cause of the clo­sure of day­care cen­tres.

An­oth­er em­ploy­ee was told that she had to find some­one to watch her chil­dren be­cause there was legal­ly no such thing as pan­dem­ic leave.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter Bap­tiste-Primus said she tabled the Draft Pol­i­cy Guide­lines on Prepar­ing Work­places in TT for COVID-19 at a Spe­cial Meet­ing of the Cab­i­net last Wednes­day.

“The Doc­u­ment was how­ev­er de­ferred to the reg­u­lar meet­ing of the Cab­i­net held yes­ter­day Thurs­day 19th March. Cab­i­net re­ferred the Draft Guide­lines to the Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pos­es Com­mit­tee. This Com­mit­tee is ex­pect­ed to meet on Mon­day 23rd March, at 10 am. Un­til the Guide­lines are ap­proved I am un­able to re­spond to the con­cerns raised,” Bap­tiste-Primus said.

Pan­dem­ic leave was first raised by Bap­tiste-Primus dur­ing a press con­fer­ence last week.

The Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment said it was dis­cussed three times in the Cab­i­net last week. Once it is ap­proved, it will be sent to the var­i­ous min­istries, who will then is­sue mem­os or­der­ing their var­i­ous of­fices and agen­cies on how to pro­ceed with the leave.

Of­fi­cials have ad­vised staff to use sick leave and ap­ply for ca­su­al leave in the mean­time. When Pan­dem­ic leave comes in­to ef­fect, they can re­quest that their leave be re­clas­si­fied.

What is Pan­dem­ic Leave?

Pan­dem­ic Leave is a new clas­si­fi­ca­tion of paid leave in light of the ef­fects of the nov­el coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) on busi­ness op­er­a­tions.

CPO Com­man­der Dar­ryl Din­di­al ex­plained that this type of leave is dif­fer­ent from sick leave and is meant to ac­com­mo­date leave for em­ploy­ees who do not have sick leave el­i­gi­bil­i­ty as part of the agreed terms of their em­ploy­ment.

The leave ap­plies to work­ers clas­si­fied as short-term em­ploy­ees, and tem­po­rary work­ers who on­ly have sick leave, but no pro­vi­sion for ex­tend­ed sick leave. He fur­ther ex­plained that this leave will as­sist par­ents who are un­able to re­port for work be­cause there is no one to su­per­vise their chil­dren while schools are closed.