Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Re­porter

The Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, will re­vise and in­crease sev­er­ance ben­e­fits payable to work­ers, pro­tect work­ers in groups few­er than five, in­tro­duce tem­po­rary lay­offs and pri­ori­tise re­hir­ing of re­trenched work­ers, says Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste.

“Our ad­min­is­tra­tion en­tered of­fice with a clear man­date to mod­ernise labour leg­is­la­tion, and with­in 12 months—not ten years—we’ve achieved con­sen­sus, draft­ed a bill, and laid it be­fore Par­lia­ment. Promise made … Promise kept!” Bap­tiste de­clared in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day.

Pi­lot­ing the bill, Bap­tiste slammed the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment for non-ac­tion on re­form­ing labour laws.

The bill mod­ernises the statu­to­ry frame­work gov­ern­ing ter­mi­na­tion on ac­count of re­dun­dan­cy. It strength­ens con­sul­ta­tion and no­tice re­quire­ments, pro­vides for pay­ment of wages in lieu of no­tice, and re­vis­es and in­creas­es sev­er­ance ben­e­fit rates payable to work­ers.

The bill al­so re­places the ob­so­lete “re­trench­ment” ter­mi­nol­o­gy with “re­dun­dan­cy” ter­mi­nol­o­gy, sets out the pro­ce­dure for ter­mi­nat­ing work­ers on the grounds of re­dun­dan­cy and in­tro­duces a tem­po­rary lay-off mech­a­nism and pri­ori­ti­sa­tion of re­hir­ing “re­dun­dant” work­ers.

Bap­tiste said the bill al­so hikes the penal­ties for in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fences from the cur­rent $10,000 for em­ploy­ers and $5,000 for trade unions, to $100,000 for em­ploy­ers and $50,000 for unions.

Laud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­mit­ment, Bap­tiste said the bill is be­ing ad­vanced by the Gov­ern­ment with de­lib­er­ate ur­gency, cog­nisant of the press­ing re­al­i­ties fac­ing work­ers and em­ploy­ers alike.

“This is one of the most con­se­quen­tial re­forms to our labour law ar­chi­tec­ture in a gen­er­a­tion ... it speaks di­rect­ly to the lived re­al­i­ties of work­ing peo­ple across T&T, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who’ve faced dis­place­ment through cor­po­rate re­struc­tur­ing, in­sol­ven­cy, re­ceiver­ship and fi­nan­cial col­lapse, of­ten with­out mean­ing­ful sev­er­ance pro­tec­tion or time­ly le­gal re­source.”

He added, “It would safe­guard the dig­ni­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of work­ers in times of eco­nom­ic tran­si­tion and em­ploy­ers equal­ly ben­e­fit from a clear, mod­ern, pre­dictable le­gal frame­work.”

Among sig­nif­i­cant changes, Bap­tiste said, is the re­vi­sion of the rate and struc­ture of sev­er­ance ben­e­fits, which re­mained sta­t­ic for over 40 years.

How­ev­er, Bap­tiste said the re­al­i­ties of to­day’s labour mar­ket, the com­plex­i­ties of cor­po­rate re­struc­tur­ing and the harsh dy­nam­ics of in­sol­ven­cy have re­vealed gaps that weak­en the cur­rent law’s pro­tec­tions.

He de­tailed the then Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress meet­ings with unions pro­duc­ing the Work­ers’ Agen­da plan to mod­ernise all labour leg­is­la­tion.

“To­day, we be­gin the ful­fil­ment of that promise. This bill rep­re­sents the first of sev­er­al ma­jor leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tives de­signed to re­align the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions frame­work with con­tem­po­rary eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties and in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice.”

Bap­tiste slammed for­mer at­tor­neys gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi and Regi­nald Ar­mour, who he said once worked for the Arcelor­Mit­tal group, which closed in 2016, dis­plac­ing 1,400 work­ers.

“The great­est in­jus­tice against work­ers was the clo­sure of Arcelor­Mit­tal ... peo­ple lost their homes, fam­i­lies, and sad­ly, even their lives. Worse, two for­mer At­tor­neys Gen­er­al un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion had con­nec­tions with the com­pa­ny but did noth­ing to ad­dress the plight of work­ers be­ing ter­mi­nat­ed.”

Pro­posed Amend­ment

•Less than 1 year up to un­der 5 years:

Hourly/Dai­ly/Week­ly: 3 weeks’ pay per year

Month­ly: 1 month’s pay per year

• 5+ years’ ser­vice:

Hourly/Dai­ly/Week­ly:

4 weeks/year (first 4 years)

6 weeks/year (5th year on­ward)

Month­ly:

1¼ months/year (first 4 years)

1¾ months/year (5th year on­ward)