OWTU back changes to Retrenchment and Severance Benefits Act

The Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) has wel­comed and sup­port­ed the pro­posed amend­ments to the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act (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.

The OW­TU said cen­tral to the amend­ments is the widen­ing of the de­f­i­n­i­tion of “re­dun­dan­cy” to in­clude cir­cum­stances aris­ing from in­sol­ven­cy and re­ceiver­ship, along with the re­place­ment of the mis­used con­cept of “sur­plus labour” with a more com­pre­hen­sive de­f­i­n­i­tion of re­dun­dan­cy. The union said these changes are crit­i­cal to pro­tect­ing work­ers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own, es­pe­cial­ly when com­pa­nies close, col­lapse or are placed un­der re­ceiver­ship.

The union said it views as par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to pri­ori­tise com­pen­sa­tion to work­ers. It said that un­der the Com­pa­nies Act, work­ers have his­tor­i­cal­ly ranked at the bot­tom of the list of ben­e­fi­cia­ries in in­sol­ven­cy pro­ceed­ings and of­ten re­ceived lit­tle or noth­ing, while cred­i­tors and oth­er claimants were paid first. The OW­TU said the pro­posed amend­ments seek to cor­rect this im­bal­ance by en­sur­ing work­ers re­ceive pri­or­i­ty pay­ment of sev­er­ance and oth­er en­ti­tle­ments.

The OW­TU al­so said it sup­ports the pro­pos­al to es­tab­lish a Guar­an­tee In­sti­tu­tion or Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Fund, aligned with In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion Con­ven­tion No. 173 on the Pro­tec­tion of Work­ers’ Claims (Em­ploy­ers’ In­sol­ven­cy), 1992. The union de­scribed this mea­sure as a pro­gres­sive re­form in­tend­ed to en­sure work­ers re­ceive what is law­ful­ly owed to them.

The union said it strong­ly sup­ports pro­posed changes to re­trench­ment pro­ce­dures de­signed to ad­dress long-stand­ing abuse by em­ploy­ers. Un­der the amend­ments, em­ploy­ers will be re­quired to con­sult all af­fect­ed work­ers through for­mal no­tices, re­gard­less of num­ber, and to for­mal­ly no­ti­fy the Recog­nised Ma­jor­i­ty Union in all cas­es un­der sec­tion 5 of the Act. The OW­TU said the amend­ment of sec­tion 7 to ex­plic­it­ly al­low pay­ment in lieu of no­tice, in line with re­gion­al best prac­tice, rep­re­sents a ma­jor gain for work­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly where com­pa­ny clo­sures pre­vi­ous­ly left work­ers with no com­pen­sa­tion.

The OW­TU al­so wel­comed amend­ments aimed at align­ing re­trench­ment pro­ce­dures in the Act by ad­dress­ing tem­po­rary lay-offs. These in­clude defin­ing “tem­po­rary lay-off” us­ing ju­di­cial cri­te­ria, in­tro­duc­ing clear pro­ce­dures, and pro­vid­ing work­ers with an en­ti­tle­ment to sev­er­ance af­ter nine­ty days of lay-off, un­less oth­er­wise agreed by the par­ties.

The union said the in­tro­duc­tion of pro­vi­sions for the pri­or­i­ty re­hir­ing of laid-off or re­trenched work­ers is an­oth­er pos­i­tive step. Con­sis­tent with In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion Rec­om­men­da­tion No. 166, these mea­sures al­low work­ers to in­di­cate in­ter­est in re-en­gage­ment with­in a spec­i­fied pe­ri­od and of­fer greater job se­cu­ri­ty and con­ti­nu­ity.

The OW­TU fur­ther said it agrees that the cur­rent sev­er­ance for­mu­la is out­dat­ed and no longer re­flects mod­ern wage lev­els, re­gion­al bench­marks or in­dus­try stan­dards. It de­scribed the pro­posed amend­ments as a de­ci­sive step in the right di­rec­tion for work­ing peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The union said it re­mains com­mit­ted to ad­vo­cat­ing for strong labour pro­tec­tions and will con­tin­ue to en­gage con­struc­tive­ly to en­sure the re­forms are ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed in the best in­ter­ests of work­ers across Trinidad and To­ba­go.