The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Bahamian employers remain “furious” about the nature and timing of the proposed Employment Act changes, one well-known businessman yesterday saying the reforms would introduce “outrageous inflexibility” and turn this nation into another France.

Calling on the Christie administration to “back off”, Dionisio D’Aguilar, Superwash’s president, said the mandatory one-hour lunch break proposal alone meant that Bahamas-based companies were being faced with a minimum 12.5 per cent increase in payroll costs.

Pointing out that this increase rose to near 20 per cent for companies using shift workers, Mr D’Aguilar, himself a former Chamber of Commerce president, told Tribune Business: “The pendulum is swinging too far to the wrong side.”

Suggesting that the proposed Act changes failed to account for reality, both in terms of the weak macroeconomic environment and the already-high operating costs faced by Bahamian businesses, Mr D’Aguilar said most politicians were blissfully unaware of this.

Pointing out that many politicians had “never run a business in their life”, the Superwash president said the constant imposition of new rules and regulations on the private sector sometimes caused him to wonder whether they “hate the business community”.

“The businesspeople and companies I talk to are furious that at this time they’re [the Government] thinking of doing this,” Mr D’Aguilar told Tribune Business.

“The fact of the matter is that the business community is just furious about these proposed changes. First of all, you’ve got the substantial increase in pay by giving workers an hour for lunch at a time when you can least afford it.

“Then, this idea of negotiating a fixed day off at the beginning of the employment contract, introduces a level of inflexibility into the system that’s outrageous. If someone’s fixed day off falls on a Christmas Eve, and you need them to work, they can say they don’t have to work.”

The former Chamber president said Bahamian small businesses were set to bear the brunt of the reform proposals, given that they lacked the staff numbers to cover for ‘mandatory lunch breaks’.

“I think it hits small business the hardest, because they generally don’t have a lot of employees and don’t have the ability to be flexible and hold on when people go to lunch,” Mr D’Aguilar said.

“It’s going to his small businesses harder than big businesses. Even in my business, I’ve got employees in different departments, but there is one employee per department. I have one presser, one cleaner, one cashier, one maintenance man.”

Given that they were paying the salaries, businesses had to determine which days were best as ‘fixed’, Mr D’Aguilar added. The Employment Act proposals also meant it would be difficult to call on employees when there were emergencies and other unexpected events.

“The problem with these politicians is that they’ve never run a business in their life,” Mr D’Aguilar said.

“You need a certain amount of flexibility to make it work. It’s difficult enough to run a business as it is. Enough, enough. Back off. We can’t take any of this right now. It’s absolutely outrageous.

“We’ve been through a horrible period of recession, roadworks. I sometimes believe the politicians hate the business community because they put all these rules and regulations on us. They’re making it so difficult.”

When it came to the proposed ‘fixed day off’, Mr D’Aguilar questioned whether he would have to sit down individually with each of his 100 staff members and negotiate with them in turn every time he wanted to switch this.

Arguing that developed nations such as the US had nothing that the Bahamas was proposing when it came to its labour legislation reforms, Mr D’Aguilar questioned whether the politicians believed this nation had full employment, as opposed to the official 15.9 per cent jobless rate.

Pointing out that the current proposals, if enacted, would be counterproductive to efforts to reduce this, Mr D’Aguilar added: “You’re making it more difficult to hire people.

“Does the Bahamas think its France, where they have a 35-hour work week? It all sounds very popular, but politicians must realise they get re-elected when people are employed, not if we are not hiring.

“These reforms are simply not thought through. It’s ill-timed, it’s inappropriate and it’s ill-advised. It’s too rigid. It’s just introducing a level of inflexibility into the system that makes it very difficult to accommodate the ever-changing nature of business. It’s inflexible and it’s outrageous.”

Inflexible labour laws, which deter companies from hiring, have been cited as one of the major issues deterring companies in troubled European welfare states, such as Greece, Spain and Italy, from hiring new workers and thus reducing the unemployment rate.

Mr D’Aguilar also expressed concern about minister of labour and National Insurance, Shane Gibson’s, past a trade union leader, hinting that this meant he would have labour sympathies.

“It concerns me that Shane Gibson is Minister of Labour, because he’s a trade unionist,” he explained. “It concerns me when I see him and Obie Ferguson, another person who’s never run a business in their life, get together and implement all these rules. It’s worrying.

“I want to be sure that when the Government consults the business community they take them seriously. I don’t want it to be a decision taken and them just informing us.”