GONE ARE the days when our foreparents and parents toiled in houses of the plantocracy from dusk to dawn to provide a livelihood for themselves and their families.
Between 1941-1954, the late Sir Grantley Adams transformed the injustices faced by the working class by improving benefits through the labour movement as history would note it.
Today, we have a much more educated workforce.We have a Barbados where there is high unemployment and desperation for jobs run high.
Bottom line
What we are not cognisant of is that there are persons out there in our transformed Barbados, even with the advent of an Employment Rights Act, who are bent on the prospects of exploitation, as the bottom line is the mighty “profit” dollar.
As the Labour Department celebrates its 75th Anniversary under the slogan 1940-2015 Promoting Justice In Employment, I would wish to see them informing, educating and enforcing the rights of citizens and members of the workforce more vibrantly and fervently.
It is indeed ironic that even after the promulgation of the Employments Rights act in 2012 we can still find some employer entities in breach of the act, as they believe it does not apply to them or so they would want you to believe.
It is now mandatory for employers to give employees clear job descriptions and along with that the prudent employer might prepare a work contract.
There are persons in this country working in excess of 40 hours and the extra hours are not treated as overtime i.e (time and a half).
There are persons working on bank holidays in some establishments who are not paid at double time, but given back the time instead.
More proactive
This appears in contracts where negotiation from the employee is not even considered. It’s like take it or leave it.
These are but two of the matters the Labour Department needs to work on, by finding ways to be more proactive, making themselves more visible to the worker and the employer as a knowledgeable arbitrator and facilitator in making labour a more cohesive and consummate relationship, where harmony and fairness can prevail, before a contentious point is reached.
Might I humbly suggest the use of more updated information, identifying scenarios which commonly arise and the use of the Government Information Service along with the frequently read Nation newspaper. The Labour Department is like a well-kept secret in Barbados. More needs to be done to bring it into the limelight.
– MARY MARK