Gov’t should protect Jamaican workers

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I SUPPORT the warning issued by Bishop Howard Gregory for the Government to pay close attention to workers’ rights and not to sacrifice it on the altar of economic growth.

The biggest scourge on our recent employment activities has been contract employment. This has been used to break the backs of persons who are interested in trade unions, and when these acts are pointed out to the Ministry of Labour, they do no investigation but rule that the unions’ claims are spurious.

When the contract employee takes his/her case to the ministry for unfair dismissal, they are told by the ministry technocrats that they are contractors and so must take their case to the courts for remedy under contract law. This is in spite of the law being amended to allow a worker who is not represented by a trade union to go to the ministry for protection of his/her rights as a worker.

In turn, the civil court is seeing an increase in the number of worker- and employment-related cases come before it due to the failure of the Government to enforce the law to protect workers from arbitrary termination on the basis of the terms of a contract.

I recently spoke to a young lady who was employed to a BPO entity. She turned up to work one morning and was told that her services were no longer needed after being on the job for a year. No health insurance, no pension, no leave, no job security for thousands of this country’s young workers. The public sector is no different. When I gave the vote of thanks at the 2017 Civil Service Long Service Award, held at The Jamaica Pegasus on February 9, 2018, I reminded the gathering (including Prime Minister Holness and some members of his Cabinet) that many of those celebrating 25 years of service to the nation are not permanent employees and so will receive no pension when they retire, notwithstanding the new Pensions Act.