EDITORIAL: get on with it! Pass flexi-week law

After two decades of public discussion and debate, a bill for the establishment of the flexible workweek in Jamaica has been taken before the island's Parliament.

True to form, some people, mainly religious fundamentalists, are demanding more talk. If they get their way, there will be a watering down or, more likely, a withering away of the critical feature of the bill.

The Government must have none of it.

Essentially, what is being done is the amendment of several bits of labour laws, which, in some instance, will formalise, and put into statute, some of what is already being done informally. Restriction of women working at nights, happily largely observed in the breach, is one bit of nonsense that is being put right.

But the core elements of the flexi-week arrangement are:

for all seven days of the week to be considered possible workdays;

for the workday to increase to a maximum of 12 hours; and

for employees to be eligible for overtime pay after they have completed 40 hours or, in other words, after the stipulated workweek.

The last point is significant. In most cases now, overtime pay kicks in after eight hours of a workday. This can push up costs to firms, without any real gains in productivity. This, hopefully, is a precursor to a review of the redundancy pay law.

The first point is the one that, 20 years later, continues to prove contentious with the religious crowd and social conservatives who want to retain the tradition of Sunday (and the informal Saturday for Adventists) as the legislated rest day of the workweek, rather than the flexible system now being contemplated.

This obduracy on the conservatives reflects, in part, a myopic observance of the shifts in the global economy, which Jamaica resists at the cost of the persistence and deepening of its poverty. Flexible work arrangements, at a time when commerce takes place, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, offer the potential for enhanced labour productivity; greater efficiency in, and a broadening of, the domestic market; and for a round-the-clock plug-in by Jamaica to the global economy.

Respect investors' rights, too

While we appreciate the constitutional right of Jamaicans to observe a religion of choice, which clearly implies their day of worship, that right cannot, and must not, impinge on the rights of others, including those people who invest capital and engage in enterprise and, perforce, employ labour. So, while a person's religion cannot be the basis of discrimination, a day on which an individual is willing, or unwilling, to work can inform a contract negotiated between two or more parties.

Further, this possibility to compress a workweek to four workdays, rather than being a bad thing, could bring greater social benefits - like more time for leisure, personal activity and family engagement. It might even open opportunities for creative religionists. Worship places can themselves go on flexitime, opening around the clock, seven days a week, for those persons who find it opportune to engage in spiritual pursuits during their new, potentially longer rest periods than they used to. God, or whatever name is ascribed to the spiritual being whom people worship, is likely to welcome the souls seeking redemption on any day they come, rather than reject them for not making it on Sunday.

The Government must get on with it.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.