Labour Act Amended

Dean Barrow

Back to the House of Representatives, the government introduced the Labour Amendment Bill 2020. The bill seeks to amend the Labour Act to provide for employers to reduce wages where the working hours of employees have been reduced in special circumstances, to provide for leave of absence without pay in special circumstances, and to provide for exemption from the period of night rest. Barrow says that the amendment was promoted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Under the new amendment, both employer and employees can now agree on the reduction of wages and corresponding reduction of hours.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“Because of the pandemic and the devastation of business activity the way the current labour act is drafted there can be no allowance made even when there is an argument on the part of employer and employee there cannot be no provisions made for the reduction of salaries. What has happened is that several employers wanting not to send their employees totally have agreed with their employees that they will reduce the hours of work and of course the hours of pay. They have been making their own private arrangement with a wink and a nod from the Ministry of Labour because the alternative is for people to be sent home completely and to be paid off and treated as retrenched and that is that. So we are trying to formalize the situation now where only in case where the employers and the employee agree that there should be reduced hours of work during the pandemic as long as the stringiest that affect the business last they can now under the amendment if it is passed agree to reduce hours of work and correspondingly reduce salaries and emoluments to reflect that.”