‘Government has placed workers in jeopardy’

Government has again be told to address urgently changes to the Severance Payments Act that could see thousands of dollars owed to workers who were laid off since since the height of the coronavirus pandemic being forfeited.

On Monday, Senator Caswell Franklyn slammed the Mia Mottley administration for its lackadaisical response to the matter, while intensifying calls for Government to address the amendment that gives severed workers just four weeks instead of a year to claim severance after the 22-week layoff period expires. He said the issue is particularly urgent for those who were laid off during the national shutdowns of March and April, because for them, the four-week period has already been triggered.

“…Because if the four weeks run out, then the employer doesn’t have any liability against them, and the Government cannot then amend the act and create a new liability on them. So it is incumbent upon the Government to either fix the legislation before the four weeks run out because these workers will not get anything,” Senator Franklyn explained while on VOB’s Down to Brass Tacks programme.

“Can you imagine working for 30 years and then all of a sudden, because Government was trying to help out the employers – in this case, the hotel industry – that they took away the severance payment from everybody? This Government cared during the campaign, but they aren’t caring anymore. These are the people that came and voted for them and they didn’t have any regard for what would happen to them,” he then declared.

Prior to the amendments, the Employment Rights Tribunal was vested with the authority to hear matters relating to severance claims for up to a year after the 22 weeks expired

“This amendment act says Section 38 of the principal act does not apply to claims made under these amendments. That doesn’t sound troublesome . . . until you find out what Section 38 is. That is the section that gives the tribunal authority to hear matters. If you cannot go to the tribunal, where will you go?” asked the Opposition Senator.

Franklyn’s warnings to workers started over a week ago when Government, in collaboration with the Barbados Workers’ Union and the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association, announced a wage subsidy programme that would allow hotel workers the choice of returnimg to a “decent wage” or triggering their severance.

After a recent meeting among stakeholders, it was still unclear how long the wage subsidy programme would last and what the fate of workers’ severance would be when it was completed.

As a result, Franklyn warned that unless Government lengthened the time after the 22-week period expired for persons to file their claims, the wage subsidy programme would jeopardise their severance under the new policy.

Since then, the BWU and Government’s special economic advisor Avinash Persaud gave assurances that the workers’ severance would not be affected. But without the necessary legislative changes, Franklyn declared that workers have been left exposed.

“Most people don’t know and some who hear about it are confused because they are getting advice from other people, who are telling them the Government is giving them the assurance that it is not going to happen. I don’t want assurances from the Government, I want law, and the law says you cannot go to the tribunal because the case does not apply to the tribunal,” Franklyn declared. (KS)