General secretary of Unity Workers Union (UWU) Caswell Franklyn is charging that the portability of national insurance benefits which Member of Parliament Toni Moore has introduced in the House of Assembly in a Private Member’s Resolution, is simply warmed over soup.
Speaking at a press conference at his union’s Belleville, St Michael headquarters on Thursday, he accused Moore, who is also general secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union, of reinventing the wheel of legislation that has been in place for the past 60 years.
“What they are proposing to do is something [Prime Minister] Errol Barrow did in 1966. This is already the law; it has been the law of Barbados since 1966,” Franklyn stated. “If you work for an employer in Barbados, no matter how many employers you have, as long as they pay you more than $21 a week, that employer must pay a national insurance contribution.”
The Private Member’s Resolution: National Portable Benefits Framework, which was debated in the House on Tuesday, calls for a portable benefits framework through the National Insurance and Social Security Service to ensure that social security follows the worker and “not the job”; among other things.
In her contribution, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley said it was seeking to promote the portability of pensions in order to ensure that short-term contract holders, or those with sub-contracting arrangements, or engaging in platform work, freelancing or otherwise casually employed and not making the 21 hours or more with one employer, were eligible to receive benefits.
Legal requirement
However, Franklyn labelled the resolution “nonsense”, contending that the move to allow workers to carry benefits between employers was not a new concept but a long-standing legal requirement that was simply not being enforced.
He argued that rather than proposing new frameworks, the authorities should focus on prosecuting employers who failed to pay these mandatory contributions.
“They cannot now go and pass a law that Errol Barrow passed in 1966 and get credit for it,” he said. “What they should be doing is going after those employers who refuse to pay national insurance contributions. The framework is already there.”
The UWU leader also accused proponents of the resolution of confusing key legal thresholds. He noted that claims regarding a “21-hour work week” threshold for benefits were incorrect and appeared to mix up different pieces of legislation.
“Under the Severance Payments Act, if you work for less than 21 hours a week, you are not entitled to severance pay. They are mixing that up with the $21 a week threshold for National insurance contributions,” Franklyn said.
He emphasised that the monetary threshold for national insurance was so low – $21 per week – that almost all employees in Barbados were legally entitled to coverage. He suggested that Parliament should focus on substantive changes to help workers rather than “reinventing the wheel”.
On the issue of worker classification, Franklyn said only the National Insurance Board had the legal authority to determine whether a worker was an employee or an independent contractor.
“No lawyer, no court, nobody else in Barbados can determine that a person is a private contractor. You have to approach the National Insurance Board for them to make that determination,” he said, citing legal precedent. “So they can’t come and say, ‘Oh, these people are self-employed’. You don’t do it like that. Follow the law.”
He urged the Government and parliamentarians to review existing legislation before attempting to introduce such measures.
“What the Government and people in Parliament should be doing is reading the law first, and then making any determination if they need any fixes or any amendments. Right now, the law is there, the law is clear.”
(MB)
