The Tribune

By Rashad Rolle

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

LEGISLATION allowing for a council that would create a more harmonious relationship among labour unions, employers and the government will be passed “in short order,” Labour and National Insurance Minister Shane Gibson said yesterday.

His statements were given at the Caribbean Congress of Labour’s (CCL) 18th Triennial Delegates Congress Business Session at SuperClubs Breezes.

“The Bahamas government has introduced new legislation, namely the National Tripartite Council Bill 2013 which will be read for the second and third time and passed, in short order, to lead to the formation of a National Tripartite Council (NTC),” he said.

He added that the council will allow for the proper processing of negotiations related to workers’ concerns and that it will also bring the country’s labour laws “into full compliance with International Labour Organisation standards.”

The council, he further said, will “advise the government on the formulation of national polices and strategies on all aspects of labour, productivity, quality and competition.”

It will also “create and develop methodologies for productivity measurement, management and improvement in the public and private sector” and it will advise “the government on labour and industrial relations matters and creating a national development strategy on labour and industrial relations.”

Calling the Bahamian government “labour friendly,” Mr Gibson added that the regulations into the “long overdue” Health and Safety at Work Act will be tabled into the House of Assembly soon.

He said: “I anticipate that the National Tripartite Council will quickly move to ratify and recommend the amendments to the Employment Act and the Minimum Wage Act.”

The CCL is a regional trade union federation established in 1960. It has a membership of half a million Caribbean workers and 33 affiliated unions representing trade union concerns for workers to CARICOM and the Association of Caribbean States (ACS).

The Bahamas is hosting this year’s session which will continue for the next five days.