Tense industrial climate

Minister of Labour and Social Relations Colin Jordan has described the current working environment in Barbados as “tense”.

Speaking during the Estimates Debate this morning, Jordan said this was primarily due to the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic had created a sense of uncertainty among both employers and employees.

“The working environment can be characterized as tense and there are a number of reasons for that. There is a fear on the part of workers, uncertainty about the future of their jobs. That is a real fear. When a person is unsure if they will have a job tomorrow or next week they will act or sometimes react in ways that they would not ordinarily so do. Those workers also have the attendant fear of illness, there are many of them trying to be teachers’ assistants while at home, they’re also many of them who have dependents who may either be elderly or persons living with disabilities who they have additional responsibilities for. Those matters work together to help create a very uncertain and fearful situation,” he told the Standing Finance Committee in the House of Assembly.

“On the part of businesses, there is also much uncertainty. There are persons who work for years, maybe decades to build a business and are wondering if it will disappear before their eyes, who have workers and go to sleep at night hoping that nobody turns up positive so that the business has to close to look after that situation, so they too have their perspectives and they have their fears.

“All of those things work together to create the tensions that we are seeing and so there has been quite a lot of reaction, uncharacteristic, some of it some may say is characteristic, but I say that some of it is quite uncharacteristic, but I think we understand where it comes from and understanding where it comes from allows us to then better address how we keep the fabric of industrial relations together,” Jordan added.

The minister took the opportunity to laud the efforts of most employers, saying he had seen significant improvement in the approach of businesses to the matter of laying off staff. (RB)