The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Bahamian companies fear the Government’s proposed amendments to the Employment Act will “decrease productivity and raise the costs of doing business” at a time when the country can least afford it, and force “marginal” businesses to permanently close their doors.

Brian Nutt, head of the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation’s (BCCEC) employment and labour division told Tribune Business that the timing of the intended changes to the Act’s Standard Hours of Work section “doesn’t make sense” given the weak economic environment.

Warning that increasing the cost of hiring/employment would also depress the Bahamas’ competitiveness against other jurisdictions when it came to attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), Mr Nutt added that, if passed, the amendments would leave some Bahamian companies “struggling to keep their heads above water”.

Tribune Business understands that Bahamian employers are especially unhappy over the proposal to include a one-hour lunch break in the definition of the ‘40-hour work week’.

By including a daily “meal interval of not less than one hour” in those 40 hours, the proposed Employment Act amendments effectively reduce the Standard Hours of Work to 35 hours per week for Bahamian workers.

Or, put another way, if passed the amendment will require Bahamian companies to pay employees for five non-working, nonproductive hours per week - with the effect of both reducing output and increasing labour costs. It reduces the productive working week by 12.5 per cent, or one-eighth.

The BCCEC is holding a meeting this afternoon to thrash out the private sector’s concerns, and work out how it should respond. A meeting has also been scheduled with Minister of Labour, Shane Gibson.

Mr Nutt told Tribune Business: “I would say that employers are very concerned, especially with respect to the state of the economy.

“You have high unemployment, businesses are struggling and not very strong, and to put something in place that decreases productivity and raises the costs of doing business doesn’t make sense.

“There’s no doubt that several of these amendments are directly related to costs, and therefore they’re going to cause marginal businesses to have a hard time keeping their heads above water,” Mr Nutt added. “We may see some of these marginal businesses go out of business.

“The other thing we have to realise is the Bahamas greatly depends on foreign direct investment, and to be raising the costs of doing business in the Bahamas is going to make other jurisdictions more attractive than the Bahamas is.”

Tribune Business has obtained a copy of the Government’s proposed Employment Act amendments, which it understands have been circulated to both the private sector and labour/trade union leaders.

Likely to be the most controversial is the newly-inserted section 8 (1) c, which now defines the Standard Hours of Work - eight hours per day, or 40 hours per week - as being “inclusive of a meal interval of not less than one hour, or any such period as may be agreed upon by the employer and employee”.

Other key changes are to the Daily and Weekly Rest Period and Public Holidays sections.

On the former, it is proposed that employers allow an employee a daily rest period of 12 consecutive hours “between ending and recommencing work”, and a weekly rest period of “at least 48 hours”. That 48-hour period is divided into two days, but they do not have to be consecutive.

However, the Employment Act amendments state that one day per week is to be the employee’s “fixed day off”.This is defined as 24 consecutive hours of rest, and the fixed day off cannot be changed without agreement between both sides, having been established at the start of employment.

As for Public Holidays, the proposed reforms state: “An employer may not require an employee to work on a public holiday except in accordance with an agreement.”

The amendments also require Bahamian employers to pay staff the normal wage they would have earned had the day not been a Public Holiday, while employees who do work are to be paid “at least double” normal wages.

Other amendments define the meaning of terms such as ‘overtime’, ‘public holiday’, ‘week’, and ‘day’.

It is unclear where the Government has obtained the proposed amendments from, but several sources suggested they appeared to have been culled from the TRIFOR/Labour Review Committee that was created under the 2002-2007 Christie administration.

Numerous recommendations were made at the time, but never acted upon, and private sector sources suggested the Government appeared to be assuming these reforms had been signed off by all parties - employers and unions - when this was not the case.

Chester Cooper, the BCCEC chairman, confirmed to Tribune Business: “We’ll have a meeting on this at the Chamber on Wednesday [today], and will have a meeting shortly thereafter with the Minister.

“I think it’s fair to say we have some concerns. We are consulting with the membership and leadership of the Employment and Labour Division, and the Minister has agreed to meet with us and here whatever concerns we have.

“We’ve had a lot of discussion on this on e-mail, and now want to sit down with, and go through, members’ positions and views, and the impact on business.”