Editorial | Negotiation still best option

The initiatives lately announced by Karl Samuda to address the tensions between industrial security guards and their employers is a move in the right direction.

However, Mr Samuda, the labour minister, must go further and do more. For while he reported that the overwhelming majority of the island’s estimated 25,000 security guards agreed to new contracts, that is unlikely to mean – in the minds of the guards, at least – a full and fair settlement of the issues raised by Justice David Batts last September when he ruled that they were employees, rather than independent contractors.

If indeed the guards who have already accepted new contracts feel that they were coerced into signing away rights, there will be lingering undercurrents which, at some point, will bubble to the surface. Such a state of affairs can’t be good for the security companies and their employees. And certainly isn’t good for the country.

So, the signed agreements notwithstanding, it behoves the minister, even before his proposed establishment of a joint industrial council, to bring all the parties to the table to negotiate a settlement that is in the interest of all sides. No one should leave feeling that they have been hard done by the deal.

GENESIS

The genesis of this matter was a case brought by the government’s National Housing Trust (NHT) against the security company, Marksman Ltd, to recover J$378 million in unpaid contributions for 3,000 security guards, covering a 16-year period, up to 2016. The NHT held that the company was obliged to deduct the employees’ portion of the tax from their salaries and remit it, along with the company’s own portion, to the trust. Marksman, however, argued that its guards were independent contractors who were liable for their own statutory payments.

Justice Batts agreed that the Marksman guards (which essentially meant all industrial security guards, given the similarity of their work arrangements) were in fact employees, rather than independent contractors, thus entitling them to all the benefits and statutory obligations of regular employees. Justice Batts, however, didn’t enforce the payment of the NHT debt. He gave the company until April to regularise its arrangements.

Security companies, which have said that the ruling would mean a sharp rise in costs and threaten their viability, have been giving their guards new contracts that require them to renounce all claims relating to their past employment.

Last week Mr Samuda – who had previously chided some guards for demonstrating at his ministry over his perceived failure to intervene on their behalf – told Parliament that 85 per cent of the security guards had already signed new contracts.

He reiterated an early statement that agreements that breached normal labour standards should be reported to his ministry for “immediate intervention”. Eighty-eight guards, he said, had filed benefits-related complaints with the labour ministry.

APPOINTMENT OF COMMITTEE

Mr Samuda also announced the appointment of a committee to prepare for the establishment of a joint industrial council (JIC) “for the regulation of the industry and protection of the security guards”.

The specific responsibilities of the proposed council weren’t outlined, but JICs usually provide a forum for the discussion/negotiation of wage rates and other job-related issues between unions and employers’ groups in industries where employment tends to be periodic and the employers disparate.

Mr Samuda also told Parliament: “What is happening currently is that there is talk broadly about the rights of security guards being violated. However, there are no concrete reports presented to the ministry (of labour) outlining the rights that have been violated.”

This newspaper reiterates its observation made previously: Mr Samuda doesn’t need specific complaints of violated rights to intervene and offer his good office to prevent problems down the road.

If, as has been claimed, guards have, out of fear, signed contracts forgoing benefits that are due to them, that will hardly lend to an environment of enduring industrial harmony.

It is better that the issues – the potential impact for companies of Justice Batts’ ruling and what ought to be the contribution of the employees to the stability of the sector – are thrashed out around a negotiating table, to arrive at a settlement that is sustainable for the long haul. Picking off employees individually will only deepen resentments.