The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

PROPOSED Employment Act reforms are the greatest concern to the sector according to Bahamas Contractors Association (BCA) president Godfrey Forbes who told Tribune Business that reforms could impact labour costs by as much as 30-35 per cent.

“We had a meeting on that the other day and from the look of things it’s going to negatively impact the construction industry as it related to labour between 30-35 per cent in terms of cost. That is the thing we are concerned about because with the construction sector right now which is just trying to get back on stream, that is going to further push it back. I don’t see where we will go ahead and have any real robust movement going forward if that is really going to come into play,” said Forbes.

Mr Forbes added: “For the major contractors you have a few hundred persons employed right off the top. When you look at small and medium sized contractors, every one of them has at least one person working for them and that is on average 4,000 people who are going to be affected. This is something that’s going to be far reaching. That is the subject that we need to go ahead and really start looking into more deeply and try to deal with.”

The BCA president said the sector was concerned about proposals for a mandatory one-hour lunch break and paying hourly staff for holidays not worked. Mr Forbes said that ‘normal’ Bahamian construction industry practice was not to pay workers for lunch breaks, which typically lasted for 30 minutes as opposed to the mandatory full-hour.

He said given that many skilled trades, such as masons, carpenters and plumbers were paid an hourly rate, the construction industry was now faced with paying them for unproductive time - namely public holidays when they are not working. Assessing the construction sector Mr Forbes said: “We have seen some activity, still a bit small in a sense but there is some positive sign of the industry picking up.”