Editorial | Riding a high horse

Labour Minister Karl Samuda got it wrong. So, too, did Robert Morgan, the information minister, who usually has good instincts of what is politically advantageous for the Government and his party.

If Mr Samuda has not yet changed course, he should be ordered by Prime Minister Andrew Holness to dismount the high horse and engage security guards, who claim they are being pressured by employers to sign away their rights to keep their jobs.

It matters naught whether the guards formally filed complaints with the labour ministry, demonstrated outside Mr Samuda’s offices – which he considers officious and rude – or exercised their right to seek redress via the courts. Mr Samuda’s primary obligation as a minister of government is to protect the national interest, which acting proactively in this matter would advance.

This issue relates to Justice David Batts’ ruling six months ago that security guards working for Marksman Limited (or other companies on similarly structured contracts) were employees, rather than independent contractors. They were therefore subject to all the benefits and obligations of employees.

The case arose from a suit by the National Housing Trust (NHT) to recover J$378 million in contributions on behalf of 3,000 employees for a 16-year period, from 2000. While the court held that Marksman was liable for the debt, Justice Batts declined to enforce it, on the basis that the NHT failed, over a long period, to pursue its rights.

REJECTED NEW CONTRACTS

The ruling, however, meant that going forward, private security companies would have to meet all their tax-related obligations on behalf of the guards, whose formal workweek – as is the case with other employees – would be limited to 40 hours.

In the aftermath of the ruling, the security industry, claiming that that decision would greatly increase their costs – which have to be passed on to their clients or cause job losses – floated the idea of adjusting the workweek for security guards to 60 hours. They would work 50 per cent longer for the same money.

As expected, that proposal did not fly. However, the Government, which is estimated to be responsible for about 60 per cent of the business done by security guard companies, announced that it would renegotiate its agreements with its private security providers. The quid pro quo was that the companies would have to follow the regulations, in accordance with Justice Batts’ ruling.

Recently, though, several of the island’s estimated 23,000 registered security guards have complained of being offered new employment contracts that would require them to sign away benefits due to them, being outstanding from their old arrangements. One proposed agreement asked security guards to confirm that they had no “pending claims, proceedings or disputes” with the company and that the employee “waives any claims or dispute” he might have.

GOOD POLITICS

The guards have, by and large, rejected these contracts. A fortnight ago several demonstrated at the labour ministry, demanding Minister Samuda’s intervention. Mr Samuda bristled at the approach.

“...You don’t lodge a dispute with me by coming to my office,” he told this newspaper. “You go through the normal and established routes, or you will not engage me. It is as simple as that. I don’t react easily. I do not take kindly to renegade actions. I don’t. Period!”

Last week, Mr Morgan, the information minister, echoed Mr Samuda’s argument about the labour ministry being unable to intervene without the parties going through the formal channels of a labour dispute. Or the security guards could take the matter to court.

Both – but more detrimentally, Mr Samuda – are mired in form. Thus, Mr Samuda missed the substance, thereby providing an opportunity for a pimple to erupt into a mass of festering pustules.

The thing for a perceptive, forward-thinking and dexterous labour minister to do is proactively engage the parties, bring them around the negotiating table and coax them to an agreement that is in everyone’s interest – including the country’s. The new paradigm may require a restructured private security industry with fewer than 78 companies. Mergers and acquisitions may be necessary.

But sitting atop high horses, nursing bruised egos and concocting renegades will not quickly advance this process. And any leader of a government and political party knows, it is not good politics.