The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Employers and trade unions were yesterday urged to abandon the “scoring victories” approach, and instead work together on labour legislation amendments so “we all get something out of the deal”.

Obie Ferguson, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) president, told Tribune Business that the current adversarial approach to labour relations was “clogging up the court system” with a “ridiculous” amount of litigation.

Mr Ferguson, a specialist labour attorney himself, agreed that the recent Industrial Tribunal ruling, which found that Bahamian employees were effectively entitled to an extra week’s paid vacation annually, would raise costs at a bad time for businesses.

While backing the verdict by Tribunal president Harrison Lockhart, Mr Ferguson said decisions like this resulted from a failure to take labour laws “very seriously”, and the absence of a ‘partnership relationship’ between the three parties involved.

He called on employers, the Government and the trade unions to harmoniously “co-exist” by working together to amend labour laws, adopting the approach used in the UK and Barbados.

While praising the Tribunal for “clearing up” how much paid vacation employees were entitled to as a minimum by law, the TUC president indicated he was alive to the cost, productivity and competitiveness implications.

“Costs must be a factor that one must take into consideration for businesses at this point in time,” Mr Ferguson told Tribune Business, in a nod to employer concerns.

“But the problem we have is that I do not think the players take this [labour] legislation very seriously. When you draft the legislation, they fail to consider the things they ought to consider, and as a result they’re bound by the law.”

Thus suggesting that Bahamian employers should have worked with trade unions and the Government to amend any deficiencies, and unresolved questions, in the Employment Act and other labour-related legislation, Mr Ferguson said this nation should follow the UK as a model.

“If you look at the amount of litigation we have in this country, it’s ridiculous,” he told Tribune Business

“In the UK, a very high percentage of civil litigation is resolved outside the courts. Here in the Bahamas, we go to court over vacation pay. It clogs the system.

“I say to the employers: You are nickel and diming on these small items. Let’s look at the major issues affecting the workplace relationship’,” the TUC president added.

“When these rulings come down, they get all excited and say it will put us out of business, but they haven’t come to sit down and negotiate, and draft and sort this out.”

Such a social partnership also existed in Barbados, but Mr Ferguson said that when it came to the Bahamas, employers and trade unions were too busy “doing the other one” - in other words, trying to gain an advantage.

“What the employers and unions ought to do is sit down and do things in the interest of the three parties - themselves and the Government,” the TUC president added.

“Not me as a union going to court to get what I want at the expense of the Government and employers. That’s not good relations. It’s where we all get something from the deal. We all have to co-exist.

“The employers, government and the unions, instead of scoring on this one, scoring on the next one, we should work together to keep costs down for the overall benefit of the country.”

In its ruling on the industrial agreement between the Central Bank and the trade union representing its line staff, the Tribunal ruled that the minimum paid vacation entitlements in the Employment Act did not include the 48 hours (two days) per week of rest that all employees are entitled to.

The Tribunal found that workers entitled to a minimum two weeks’ paid vacation per year were really allowed a minimum ‘14 working days’ or almost three weeks. And those workers eligible for three weeks’ paid vacation, under his determination, are really entitled to 21 working days or more than four weeks off.

To-date, all Bahamian employers and workers have operated on the basis that the ‘two week’ and ‘three week’ paid vacation legal minimums include the ‘48 hours of rest’. As a result, staff have received only 14 and 21 consecutive days off, respectively.

With labour costs already the biggest expense item for most Bahamian businesses, adding an extra week’s paid vacation per employee to the mix will send these through the roof - if the verdict stands.

The Industrial Tribunal’s ruling could also not come at a worse time for many companies, who are still grappling with the Budget’s new and increased taxes, plus the impending Value-Added Tax (VAT).