By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Bahamian trade unions are pushing labour law reforms that will impose a 20-fold increase in financial sanctions on businesses and an exorbitant redundancy cost burden - while simultaneously removing restrictions on their operations.

The proposals are due to be discussed for the first time by the National Tripartite Council, which also features private sector and labour representatives, when the body meets on November 3 next week.

Business community executives yesterday again warned that the proposed amendments threatened to increase private sector costs to the point where they would “stop people wanting to be in business”, and drive away potential foreign direct investment (FDI).

They implied that the devastation wrought by Hurricane Matthew on the Bahamian economy, coupled with this nation’s latest slippage in the World Bank’s ‘ease of doing business’ rankings to 121st spot, provided further reasons to hold-off on implementing any legislative changes.

These include removing the Employment Act’s existing ‘12-year cap’ on severance/redundancy pay, and a mandatory 60-day notice period that employers must give the Government and relevant bargaining agents - trade unions - when they intend to make 10 or more employees redundant.

Tribune Business, though, can reveal for the first time the extent of the trade union movement’s demands, which go much further than what has been revealed publicly to-date, and threaten to price the economy - and businesses - out of the market.

When it comes to redundancy pay, the Employment Act currently mandates that employees receive two weeks’ notice or pay in lieu of notice, plus two weeks pay’ for every year worked up to 24 weeks. This effectively ‘caps’ redundancy pay for line staff at a six-month maximum.

However, the joint recommendations submitted by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and National Congress of Trade Unions (NCTU) propose a massive lifting of this ceiling - to the point where long-serving line staff will receive compensation equal to that of managerial employees.

The unions are seeking a sliding scale, where workers made redundant after six months to five years on the job would receive two weeks’ pay per year worked.

For those who have worked for their employer for between five-10 years, the labour movement wants redundancy payments to increase to two-and-a-half weeks per year, with staff who have served for between 10 to 15 years gaining three weeks’ pay per year.

Finally, for long-serving employees who have worked for 20 years or more, the unions want redundancy pay to be four weeks’ per year.

This, if the Government were minded to enact it, would result in long-serving line staff receiving redundancy pay equivalent to the compensation received by managerial workers, which the unions want to keep at a month’s salary per year worked.

Under their proposals, a 30-year worker made redundant would receive 120 weeks’ or close to two-and-a-half years’ pay - representing a massive expansion in the social safety net and imposing a near-impossible burden on an already-struggling Bahamian private sector.

Peter Goudie, the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation’s (BCCEC) labour relations specialist, and one of the private sector’s Tripartite Council representatives, confirmed that he had seen the unions’ proposals.

“That’s what they want to bring to the table for discussion, and that’s what’s going to be discussed on November 3,” he told Tribune Business.

“Obviously, the opinion of the Chamber and the business side of the Tripartite Council is that you are putting the cost of business up, and you are going to stop people wanting to do business here.

“That’s our opinion and we’ll let it be known on November 3. They can do what they want to do and say what they want to say, but we’ll have our say. It’ll be a fun meeting.”

Mr Goudie said that while it was fine for the trade union movement to “cherry pick” the reforms it wants, “there’s a cost to doing business, and if you keep raising it you will have people not opening businesses or starting to cut back. It’s just common sense; I don’t know what else to say”.

Mr Goudie also confirmed that the trade union reform recommendations were e-mailed out by the Department of Labour on August 31, along with the latter’s own letter detailing the Government’s intentions - intentions that look eerily similar to the union proposals.

This is likely to reinforce perceptions among the private sector, voiced privately to Tribune Business, that the Department of Labour is pro-union and anti-business.

Mr Goudie, meanwhile, said the union proposals were also contrary to Prime Minister Perry Christie’s desire to increase foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to the Bahamas.

“It would seem to me that if we make the cost of business exceedingly high, or even higher than it is now, I think we’ll have trouble trying to get foreign direct investment into this country,” Mr Goudie told Tribune Business.

“People look at some of this stuff and go: Uh, Uh, Uh. Yet the Prime Minister is going out trying to attract foreign direct investment. It seems what they’re asking for is counter to the position taken by the Prime Minister.”

Tribune Business can also reveal that the trade unions are seeking a 20-fold increase in fines paid by businesses who run afoul of the Industrial Relations Act, with penalties rising from $5,000 to $100,000. They are also recommending that prison terms be increased from one to three years.

Stricter timelines are also being sought when it comes to the recognition of trade unions and granting of Certification, with the two union bodies pushing reforms that would legally mandate employers to start “collective bargaining” negotiations within 30-60 days.

And, in an obvious response to recent events at Sandals and the Melia, in the absence of an existing industrial agreement for the hotel industry, the unions also want the law to ensure the terms of expired deals “remain in force” until a new one takes effect.

Other proposals are designed to benefit the unions themselves, including the apparent removal of the Industrial Relations Act provision that requires at least 60 per cent of bargaining agent members to how much will be deducted from their salary in union dues.

Union members will also be unable to hold a secret ballot on whether to amend industrial agreement provisions relating to union dues and other financial matters.

Currently, just 25 per cent of members can ask the Labour Minister to hold such a ballot, but the unions are recommending that this provision be struck from the Act.

Other proposed amendments also call for union officials’ time in office to be extended from three to five years, while legal restrictions on unionists sitting on more than one union’s Board or executive committee are removed.

Obie Ferguson, the Trades Union Congress’s president, confirmed to Tribune Business that these were among the labour law reforms that unionists are seeking.

“It’s a very important day,” he said of the upcoming November 3 meeting, “because there are a number of things we have to amend. The earlier the better.

“I’m expecting employers to resist. Traditionally in the Bahamas, where there is a move to amend the laws to advance the workers’ rights and interests, employers have opposed it.”