Anti-discrimination law in the works

A new national anti-discrimination law is coming, says Minister of Labour, Social Partnership and the Third Sector Colin Jordan.

He was speaking during a Zoom forum today, under the topic Different: The New Normal 2, which was the second session hosted by the Human Resource Management Association of Barbados (HRMAB), assisted by the Barbados Employers’ Confederation (BEC).

Jordan told participants, along with president of HRMAB Britanny Brathwaite and executive director of BEC Sheena Mayers-Granville, that his Ministry is actively working on new legislation to govern discrimination in society as a whole.

“The Ministry has also commenced drafting policy to address discrimination generally. So, the Act that has been passed speaks to discrimination in the workplace but there is need for society wide positions to be taken against discrimination,” he said.

“The Ministry has started that work and there is, on my desk, a draft policy paper. I am actually looking at it and reading the title of a draft policy paper to address omnibus and discrimination legislation. That is a matter that is live. We are working on it. We started to work on this even before the employment-related Discrimination Bill was passed. We recognise that at the end of the day, people must be treated as people.”

Speaking against the backdrop of the recently passed Employment (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill, 2020, the Labour Minister said the issue of discrimination was not only a national issue but a global one as well.

“There are people all over the world dying over this matter of discrimination. In 2020, my view is that people are ready for the conversation and people are having the conversation. Where I am hearing the concerns is not to do with discrimination generally but specific mentions that have been made in Act. The conversation about discrimination is one that we have accepted and gone past,” he said.

Jordan said the topic was now engaging attention and support in quarters it hadn’t before.

“The Barbados Private Sector Association has – and this has now to do with the Nelson issue – come out, and this is the first time that an organisation like that has come out in this manner to say they support the removal of Nelson. That tells me that the discussion on discrimination has reached to a particular place,” he said.

Minister Jordan reminded participants that a discrimination-free Barbados is what the Barbados Labour Party-led administration promised prior to elections.

“Our manifesto was prepared after a lot of consultation, rubbing shoulders and People’s Assemblies, a lot of discussion . . . the launching of our covenant of hope in relation to what a grand Barbados would look like . . . the kind of principle that ensures that people are seen as human beings and that they are treated as such and we can focus our minds on building that more harmonious, that more just society, that all of us would really want to be a part of . . .,” he said.

As it relates to the workforce, Jordan urged employers to treat people as they would want to be treated.

“If we adopted the Golden Rule as our guiding principle, then matters of general mistreatment of workers would not be the kind of issue that it is all too often. The mistreatment of workers is too prevalent and those of us who are in leadership positions, we have to adopt the position that we are human beings and we are dealing with human beings. We should try as much as we can and as hard as we can to treat them in the same way that we would want to be treated and want others to treat us,” the Labour Minister said. (IMC)