Raphael John-Lall

While the Em­ploy­ers Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion (ECA) is sat­is­fied that out­dat­ed labour leg­is­la­tion is be­ing up­dat­ed, the coun­try’s largest em­ploy­er body be­lieves that this process must take in­to ac­count what is hap­pen­ing in the wider econ­o­my.

In Jan­u­ary, Min­is­ter of Labour Leroy Bap­tiste said Cab­i­net has ap­proved the amend­ments to the Ma­ter­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Act and the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act (RS­BA) and they are now be­fore the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for fi­nal le­gal vet­ting ahead of par­lia­men­tary con­sid­er­a­tion.

He said his heart goes out to any­one who may be on the bread­line in light of the an­nounce­ment of the clo­sure of lo­cal me­dia house News­day.

Bap­tiste said that it is im­por­tant to have mea­sures in place to al­low work­ers to tran­si­tion in­to oth­er gain­ful em­ploy­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Labour’s web­site, the RS­BA pre­scribes the pro­ce­dure to be fol­lowed in the event of re­dun­dan­cy and makes pro­vi­sion for sev­er­ance pay­ments to be made to re­trenched work­ers.

In a state­ment to the Busi­ness Guardian, the ECA said it is well-doc­u­ment­ed that the or­gan­i­sa­tion has long been a pub­lic ad­vo­cate for the re­view of T&T’s labour leg­is­la­tion to en­sure that it re­mains rel­e­vant, ef­fec­tive and fit for pur­pose in a chang­ing eco­nom­ic and labour-mar­ket. In this re­gard, ac­cord­ing to the ECA, the pri­ori­ti­sa­tion of labour law re­form is com­mend­able.

“How­ev­er, labour law mod­erni­sa­tion and re­form should not sim­ply be ex­pe­di­ent but al­so bal­anced, con­tex­tu­al­ly ap­pro­pri­ate, eco­nom­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able and ground­ed in broad con­sen­sus, strength­en­ing the ef­fec­tive­ness of the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions sys­tem for all stake­hold­ers,” the ECA stat­ed.

The ECA ex­pressed con­cern about the pro­posed in­tro­duc­tion of ma­jor re­forms across sev­er­al core pieces of labour leg­is­la­tion si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing a pe­ri­od of wider eco­nom­ic ad­just­ments, and the risk of un­in­tend­ed con­se­quences for for­mal em­ploy­ment, busi­ness re­struc­tur­ing, en­ter­prise vi­a­bil­i­ty and in­vest­ment con­fi­dence.

“The RS­BA is crit­i­cal as a gov­ern­ing frame­work for how em­ploy­ers are re­quired to man­age work­force ad­just­ments and based on what has been pub­licly out­lined, there are pol­i­cy di­rec­tions that war­rant se­ri­ous en­gage­ment, along­side oth­ers that will re­quire care­ful eco­nom­ic and op­er­a­tional im­pact as­sess­ment. In this re­gard, the ECA is ac­tive­ly re­view­ing the pro­posed re­forms and en­gag­ing its mem­ber­ship.”

The ECA added that ex­pe­ri­ence shows that even where broad re­form prin­ci­ples may at­tract con­sen­sus, the re­al im­pli­ca­tions for em­ploy­ment, com­pet­i­tive­ness,and busi­ness sus­tain­abil­i­ty emerge in the de­sign and im­ple­men­ta­tion of the amend­ments them­selves, and these im­pli­ca­tions can be par­tic­u­lar­ly con­se­quen­tial for mi­cro, small medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (MSMEs).

In a state­ment in Jan­u­ary, the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) wel­comed and sup­port­ed the pro­posed amend­ments to the RS­BA, say­ing the changes ad­vance a long-stand­ing work­ers’ agen­da.

The union said it wel­comed the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to im­ple­ment­ing re­forms that it de­scribed as part of an agen­da de­vel­oped more than three years ago. Ac­cord­ing to the OW­TU, it and oth­er unions worked with the then op­po­si­tion, led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, to craft pro­pos­als aimed at ad­dress­ing ur­gent is­sues af­fect­ing work­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those re­lat­ed to the RS­BA.

Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed in Jan­u­ary that while speak­ing at a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress me­dia con­fer­ence at the par­ty’s Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters in Jan­u­ary, the Labour Min­is­ter not­ed that while the RS­BA was de­signed to pro­tect work­ers who are re­trenched, the com­pen­sa­tion frame­work and pro­ce­dures are out­dat­ed and leave many work­ers with­out rep­re­sen­ta­tion or ad­e­quate sup­port.

“The com­pen­sa­tion is out­dat­ed, the pro­ce­dure leaves a lot of peo­ple un­rep­re­sent­ed if they are faced with be­ing on the bread­line. That is what the in­tent there is, to treat with that gap and close that gap so that peo­ple get the max­i­mum lev­el of sup­port if they are be­ing faced with­out a job,” he added.

Bap­tiste said sev­er­al loop­holes in the ex­ist­ing RS­BA have been ex­ploit­ed by em­ploy­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly in how re­dun­dan­cy is de­fined un­der the law.

“Re­dun­dan­cy is deemed to be sur­plus labour on­ly, and there­fore an em­ploy­er could have eas­i­ly avoid­ed oblig­a­tions to work­ers if they cry in­sol­ven­cy, if they dis­con­tin­ue op­er­a­tions or close their doors,” he ex­plained.

Un­der the pro­posed amend­ments, the de­f­i­n­i­tion of re­dun­dan­cy will be ex­pand­ed to in­clude in­sol­ven­cy, re­ceiver­ship and oth­er forms of busi­ness dis­con­tin­u­a­tion, en­sur­ing work­ers are not left with­out re­course when op­er­a­tions cease.

He al­so con­firmed the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to es­tab­lish­ing a Guar­an­teed Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Fund, which will en­sure that mon­ey is set aside to pay work­ers in the event of sep­a­ra­tion.

“The es­tab­lish­ment of a Guar­an­teed Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Fund, aligned with ILO Con­ven­tion 173, is one of the things that will be ad­dressed with the amend­ment of the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act,” Bap­tiste said.

He said cur­rent­ly, T&T does not have such a fund, mean­ing sev­er­ance pay­ments de­pend large­ly on the fi­nan­cial ca­pac­i­ty of em­ploy­ers at the time of re­trench­ment.