Editorial | Flexi-work in hot times

Short bursts of rain or overcast conditions in recent days have brought fleeting relief to Jamaica’s sweltering summer temperatures. That, however, does not indicate that the heatwave is over.

The forecasts are for it to continue – and not just for the remaining hot months of 2023. Global warming and climate change are making Earth an increasingly hotter planet on which to live. The evidence is all around the world, from the heatwaves in the Caribbean and in Europe and North Africa to wildfires in Hawaii in the Pacific.

Which is why calls for Jamaicans to find ways of coping with the scorching temperatures, including being more flexible in the hours they work – as was recently promoted by the health minister, Christopher Tufton – remain relevant. Indeed, the labour minister, Pearnel Charles Jr, in concert with Dr Tufton, should ensure that this question of flexible work arrangements is brought to the table for full discussion by all partners – the Government, workers and their representatives, employers’ and private-sector interests, and civil society groups.

This, of course, would not be breaking new ground. A law allowing for greater work time flexibility has been on the books since 2014. It, however, has enjoyed relatively limited use, mostly employed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Government sought to limit workplace groups and encouraged employers to allow their staff to work from home.

FLEXIBILITY

Jamaica’s flexible work scheme, an outgrowth of labour market reforms of the late 1990s, was more about striving to be economically competitive than a search for better work-life balance, as is the case in, say, the European Union, where the emphasis has been providing carers, especially fathers and mothers, flexibility to fulfil their obligations and to bond with their children.

Under Jamaica’s arrangement, the workweek remains 40 hours, to be completed over any five days of the week, without the previous exclusion of Saturdays and Sundays. Importantly, a workday can be extended up to 12 hours (previously, it was capped at eight hours) and people are not paid overtime until they have done 40 hours.

Prior to those changes, employees in regular standard-hours jobs were entitled to overtime once they worked more than eight hours on a given day.

Crucial to the scheme, employers and workers can, outside of normal shift arrangements, agree on how to schedule work time. Rather than the usual 40 hours over five days, they could, for instance, opt for four 10-hour days, including Saturdays and Sundays, or some other variation of hours and days.

It is this latter system of which Dr Tufton has been urging greater Jamaican take-up, especially for people who have to work in the open – such as construction and utility workers – under steaming conditions.

NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES

As the health authorities have highlighted, extended time in the heat, especially while engaged in strenuous activity, can be hazardous to people’s health. Even deadly.

Although Jamaica has not reported any major cases of heat-related emergencies or deaths, what has happened in other countries underlines the possibilities. But neither is it far-fetched to assume that the incidence of heatstrokes in the island in recent months is under-reported.

In this regard, attempting to keep hydrated, or taking short breaks from concentrated efforts, may not be enough in extreme heat.

Dr Tufton and others have suggested that in some instances, especially for outside work, the workday could be broken into two segments. Work might begin earlier in the mornings when it is still cool, broken off during the hottest part of the day, and resumed later when temperatures have subsided.

It is indeed concerning to observe, for example, road construction crews slogging away in the middle of the day in extreme, health-sapping heat when the technology exists for them to work during cooler periods. Which is also likely to be less disruptive to communities, and to have fewer negative consequences for the national economy.

Laying sidewalks and culverts at the height of the commuting period usually slows traffic, costing commuters and businesses millions of man-hours. That is detrimental to productivity, which imposes a cost on the economy. Which, of course, is a good reason to revisit the flexi-work arrangement to extract the promised value from it.

But for this conversation, we need not start there. Protecting people’s health seems a powerful argument from which to proceed.