Grant (left) and Charles (right)

FEARS OF more jobs cuts have prompted Labour and Social Security Minister Pearnel Charles to make an impassioned plea for urgent dialogue between employers and workers for the implementation of 'flexi' work arrangements.

"I have been receiving thousands of redundancy letters from employers across the (country)," Charles last Thursday told a sitting of a joint select committee of Parliament considering a green paper on flexible work arrangements.

Charles encouraged employers and employees to "start serious discussions on flexi workweek at in an effort to cut cost and save jobs, rather than the cutting of jobs to save cost".

The labour minister said he did not want employers and workers to believe that the committee was imposing on them flexi workweek.

"For me, from where I sit at the Ministry of Labour, it's going to take some time before the rain comes and the grass starts to spring green again," Charles said in relation to the global economic recession.

serious downturn

Committee member, Senator Norman Grant, while supporting his colleague's recommendation, reminded the committee that there was a serious downturn in economic activities, which was impacting negatively on businesses.

"In times like these we have to place more focus on how employers and policymakers can start to shape persons who would be out of a job in another one, two, three or four months," Grant said.

He said employers and government should find ways to assist workers who have lost their jobs to start their own businesses.

Navel Clarke, a trade unionist and committee member, said he supported flexi workweek arrangements. "It has potential for the growth and development of the country," he said.

Charles urged his colleagues to join with him in his call for both labour and capital to complete talks on flexi-work arrangements.

"Some of the kind of money I see people pay for redundancy, I wonder if their company value more than that. If you have so much money to pay out for redundancy you should be looking towards job creation and productivity," Charles stressed.

The committee had been deliberating on flexi workweek since last year, but talks on the issue first started in 1997.

Many church leaders have expressed opposition to a seven-day flexi workweek, arguing that this move could deprive the individual of his day of worship.

Ministry of Labour officials told the parliamentary committee that nine pieces of legislation would have to be amended to facilitate the flexi workweek policy.

However, Marlene Aldred, legal adviser in the attorney general's chambers, said the number of laws to be amended to give effect to flexi time surpassed nine.

violating the law

Charles told the committee that at present many women outside of the essential services were violating the law by working at nights. He said one of the amendments being sought would clear the way for women to work at nights without contravening the law.

The attorney general's chambers has been asked to carry out an overview of the laws that would need amendment to pave the way for flexi-work arrangements.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com