Ali­cia Llanos

Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol Mc Leod says the main is­sues fac­ing work­ers' or­gan­i­sa­tions are those per­tain­ing to labour laws and con­tract labour.

He was speak­ing yes­ter­day at a press brief­ing fol­low­ing the Min­istry of Labour, Small and Mi­cro En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment's Na­tion­al Stake­hold­ers Con­sul­ta­tion with work­ers' or­gan­i­sa­tions at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain. A to­tal of 60 work­ers' or­gan­i­sa­tions, which in­clud­ed the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union, gath­ered in an open fo­rum to dis­cuss the is­sues af­fect­ing the labour sec­tor.

Mc Leod said the main is­sues fac­ing labour were labour laws, es­pe­cial­ly those list­ed in the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act. He said is­sues raised were that of the Work­men's Com­pen­sa­tion Act which had to be re­placed by the Em­ploy­ee Com­pen­sa­tion Bill.

Mc Leod said an­oth­er is­sue raised was the need to look in­to the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act (OS­HA) in re­la­tion to the time pe­ri­od an em­ploy­ee was giv­en to file a com­plaint against an or­gan­i­sa­tion. He said a lot of labour leg­is­la­tion was out­dat­ed and need­ed to be re­vised.