Govt makes changes to Retrenchment, Maternity acts

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Min­is­ter of Labour and Small and Mi­cro En­ter­pris­es Leroy Bap­tiste has an­nounced sweep­ing amend­ments to the Ma­ter­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Act and the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act (RS­BA), cit­ing long-stand­ing gaps and the ur­gent need to bet­ter pro­tect work­ers fac­ing job loss.

Speak­ing at a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress me­dia con­fer­ence at the par­ty’s Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters yes­ter­day, Bap­tiste said the amend­ments have al­ready been ap­proved by Cab­i­net and are now be­fore the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for fi­nal le­gal vet­ting ahead of par­lia­men­tary con­sid­er­a­tion.

He un­der­scored the ur­gency of re­form­ing the RS­BA in the wake of the an­nounce­ment on Fri­day of the pend­ing clo­sure of the News­day news­pa­per, which has placed work­ers at risk of re­trench­ment.

“My heart goes out to any­one who would have lost a job or is fac­ing the bread­line, and the one thing I want to en­sure is that if some­thing like that hap­pens, that we of­fer max­i­mum cush­ion that al­lows them to tran­si­tion in­to some oth­er gain­ful em­ploy­ment,” Bap­tiste said.

He 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 oblig­a­tion 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.

Mean­while, in as­sess­ing the cur­rent Ma­ter­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Act, Bap­tiste said the leg­is­la­tion, last sig­nif­i­cant­ly amend­ed in 2012, al­so con­tained ma­jor gaps that no longer re­flect mod­ern fam­i­ly struc­tures or work­place re­al­i­ties.

Among the pro­posed changes are pro­vi­sions for pa­ter­ni­ty leave and parental leave rights for fa­thers and adop­tive par­ents, in­clud­ing cir­cum­stances where a moth­er dies dur­ing or af­ter child­birth.

The amend­ments will al­so in­tro­duce statu­to­ry pro­tec­tion for breast­feed­ing, in­clud­ing paid breast­feed­ing breaks for moth­ers, and safe­guards against dis­crim­i­na­tion re­lat­ed to ma­ter­ni­ty, pa­ter­ni­ty or breast­feed­ing.

“Moth­ers will be statu­to­ri­ly pro­tect­ed for breast­feed­ing and be al­lot­ted time with pay,” Bap­tiste said.

The leg­is­la­tion will in­tro­duce ap­pro­pri­ate fines for em­ploy­ers who breach these pro­tec­tions and ex­tend clear­er rights to con­tract work­ers, who are of­ten ex­clud­ed from ben­e­fits un­der the cur­rent frame­work.

Bap­tiste said mat­ters aris­ing un­der the amend­ed act will be fast-tracked through the courts to al­low for im­me­di­ate re­dress.

He al­so crit­i­cised the ex­ist­ing rule that re­stricts women from ac­cess­ing ma­ter­ni­ty ben­e­fits more than once with­in a 24-month pe­ri­od.

“Cur­rent­ly, we pe­nalise women by say­ing they can ap­ply for ma­ter­ni­ty ben­e­fits once in 24 months…it is not for us to get in­volved,” he said, sig­nalling that this re­stric­tion will be re­moved.

Bap­tiste main­tained that the pro­posed amend­ments will have a far-reach­ing and pos­i­tive im­pact.

“This act will make a se­ri­ous im­pact on women, fa­thers and adop­tive par­ents,” he said.

Aca­d­e­m­ic sup­port, calls for reg­u­lar re­view

The pro­posed re­forms have re­ceived sup­port from labour spe­cial­ist Trevor John­son.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, John­son said the need to amend the leg­is­la­tion was long over­due and re­flec­tive of wider de­fi­cien­cies across the leg­isla­tive land­scape.

“And that in it­self, you know, should say some­thing. As I said, you know, you can’t con­tin­ue in this present mod­ern en­vi­ron­ment with­out up­dat­ed leg­is­la­tion,” John­son said.

He added that the is­sue ex­tends be­yond labour laws alone.

“You speak and hear about the labour leg­is­la­tion and labour move­ment, but the same may ap­ply to oth­er seg­ments of so­ci­ety, whether it be busi­ness, whether it be NGOs, et cetera. You sim­ply need to have up­dat­ed leg­is­la­tion. The Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act is an­oth­er one that comes to mind,” he not­ed.

John­son said he sup­port­ed and en­dorsed any rea­son­able rec­om­men­da­tions, once they were sub­ject to mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion with stake­hold­ers.

“All leg­is­la­tion, not just labour, needs re­al­ly to be sub­ject to re­view with­in a rea­son­able time frame, once every five years, at least, or worst-case sce­nario once per decade,” he said.

He warned that in a rapid­ly evolv­ing glob­al en­vi­ron­ment, out­dat­ed laws place work­ers and in­sti­tu­tions at risk.

“The fast-chang­ing pace of the world now that we live in means we can­not af­ford to con­tin­ue go­ing for­ward with labour leg­is­la­tion that is to­tal­ly ar­cha­ic,” John­son said.