There were major legislative accomplishments during my tenure at the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security

Dear Editor,

Since the formation of A New and United Guyana (ANUG) was announced, some have enquired ‘he been deh (a minister) so long what he ever do?’ In the current context, it is a legitimate question, and not to take too much of your time, I will begin from the beginning (1992) and restrict myself to what I consider the main accomplishments of the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security (MLHSSS), of which I was the senior minister (Indra Chandarpal was the junior minister). However, I can assure you and possibly will have to, that I can make a similar presentation for any of the ministries I led.

It cannot be denied that between 1992 and 1997 when I was the minister, the most important labour and related legislation in Guyana’s post-independence history, which on a daily basis still affects the lives of thousands of people, was enacted and implemented.

* The Trade Union Recognition Act, which provides for workers to be represented by the union of their choice, was passed in 1997. Since 1953 it had eluded and contributed to the fall of PPP governments in 1953 and 1963.

* The Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Act, which provided for the first time a national benchmark to which employers must adhere. Since then, thousands of working people have benefitted from severance pay, as have the recently terminated 7,000 sugar workers, whom the courts have now decided must be paid interest on their severance entitlement.

* The Occupational Health and Safety Act, at the time perhaps the most modern in the Caricom region, provides for safety committees to be established in every enterprise with more than twenty employees. 1993 to 2000 can easily be defined as the golden era of

OSH: inspections of workplaces increased by 20% and there was a 72% reduction in the number of reported workplace accidents (industrial accidents reduced from 8,383 in 1993 to 2,370 in 1999). Days and wages lost were reduced by approximately 85% between 1993 and 2000.

* In 1995 the Domestic Violence Act was passed and Help & Shelter is still in the building that allocated to it free of charge and its shelter for abused and trafficked women and their female and pre-pubescent male children is still at the place I provided.

* The Prevention of Discrimination Act made it unlawful to discriminate on grounds of race, religion, pregnancy, disability, etc. in the workplace and elsewhere.

* The Guyana Relief Council was registered as an NGO in 1994. Before that it was a stultified department in the ministry. Since its formation, mostly by way of its own fund- raising it established an emergency shelter that can house 100 persons and helped thousands of persons. The fact that in 2011, the council was awarded our national Medal of Service for the contributions it has made to our society and particularly the poor and powerless, speaks for itself.

* The Shops Act was amended to radically change when we can shop in Guyana: expanding opening hours to 8pm and enabling shops to open on Sundays and some public holidays and for the workers to be protected in such establishments.

The vision was to modernise and make industrial relations adjudication as independent as possible. At one point, the Department of Labour had only 4 labour officers, but by 1996 it had 14 and labour inspections increased from about 100 to over 1,000 per year.

To round off this vision, when I was about to leave the ministry, I wrote that the following was left to be accomplished, and they are still to be done:

* Pass the Industrial Tribunal Bill which was at the time being discussed by the social partners.

* Develop an independent mediation and conciliation service

A minister can only develop a vision, make, drive and monitor policy. So to gain consensus, my first act upon entering the ministry was to organise a national tripartite committee of government, labour and the private sector. If that committee had not existed and the workers in the ministry hadn’t given of their best, the above would not have been accomplished.

Yours faithfully,

Henry B. Jeffrey