Fresh calls for labour law reform

Jamaican specialists are again calling for the revision of outdated labour laws, the second time in three months that the issue is being raised.

The pandemic has further exposed weaknesses in the legislation around the requirements of a modern workforce, rights around flexi-work arrangements, and incentives needed to drive employment.

Fresh calls for reform came this week from lawyer Gavin Goffe for the revision of the labour relations code to encourage and incentivise more formal employment, especially by foreign investors, at the Private Sector Organisations Jamaica’s Labour Reform Seminar on Wednesday.

Goffe, a partner at the law firm Myers, Fletcher & Gordon, who specialises in employment, litigation, tax and defamation, described the labour laws as rigid; saying the uncertainties around severance payments are seen as punitive to both local and international investors, and as such, have led to more fixed-term contractual work arrangements within high-growth sectors such as the business process outsourcing industry, contract breaks, and the blacklisting of ‘troublemakers’ who seek jobs within a particular sector.

Jamaica’s labour relations code, which was adopted in 1976 under the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act of 1975, provides employers with guidelines for promoting good labour relations to include the collective bargaining and industrial relations, and bringing greater protection to the employee.

Goffe argues that there is much discourse around the “hidden” and “high” costs that companies are forced to pay when it wants to cut ties with an employee, which at times serve to deter foreign investors’ interest in the country, he charged.

“A lot of employers are using fixed-term contracts – whether it’s six months, one year or two years – and what that means is that they don’t have to be hit with these enormous severance costs. They simply will say, I’m going to wait until your contract is up and I’m not going to renew it,” Goffe said.

“Or, if taken to the tribunal, the [Industrial Disputes] Tribunal is going to say, ‘pay the balance of the contract’, which might only be one month. So, it’s a way of bringing that certainty that the law doesn’t provide,” he asserted.

Some employers also utilise ‘contract breaks’ as a strategy, which on average runs for two weeks, he added, and then reset the contract arrangement for employees.

Plethora of redundancies

The talks around severance costs and the need for a review of the labour relations code – which is over four decades old and has been described as archaic – comes amid a plethora of redundancies by large and small businesses and the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic; as well as the shift towards new employment arrangements such as ‘remote work,’ or work-from-home, programmes.

Local trade unions have been trying to get the Government to get ahead of the changing working environments through proactive reforms, and have been angling for dialogue with both the state and corporate leaders. Their last big public pitch was made in December at the Planning Institute of Jamaica’s annual Labour Market Forum,

The unions want a formal policy around flexible work arrangements to include safeguards for employees and more precise definitions of their rights as workers in ‘remote’ environments, but, to date, there has been no formal gathering of the parties.

Nor has there been any movement towards improving the labour code, or a signal that an upgrade is imminent.

“In spite of the effort that employers, trade unions, and even employee organisations have tried to get this document updated, we don’t seem to be making any progress on that,” Goffe said on Wednesday.

“In the late ‘70s, our work environment was very different from what we are doing now; and in the next five years it’s going to be very different, especially with how we are doing work now. Having a 44-year-old document still guiding us in our employee relations is just speechless … we need to have something done about that, and urgently,” he said.

karena.bennett@gleanerjm.com