By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas “is becoming a socialist state”, an outspoken FNM candidate said yesterday, blasting the Government’s decision to move ahead with controversial labour law reforms as “madness”.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, the party’s Freetown candidate in the upcoming election, told Tribune Business that the proposed changes to the Employment and Industrial Relations Acts would only “make it harder” to cut the 25-30 per cent unemployment rate among young Bahamians.

Speaking after Shane Gibson, minister of labour and national insurance, tabled Bills to change both laws in the House of Assembly yesterday, Mr D’Aguilar, who owns and runs the Superwash laundromat chain, warned they would deter Bahamian businesses from hiring.

Acknowledging that the Government would likely accuse himself and the FNM of being “insensitive” to the plight of Bahamian workers and the proverbial ‘small man’, Mr D’Aguilar argued it was more important to spark job creation for all rather than impede business expansion.

“You already have an economy that is not growing,” he told Tribune Business. “You already have a private sector that is stressed. You already have small businesses screaming about bureaucracy and the cost of running a business, and now you’re increasing the taxes they have to pay for running their businesses.

“We’re becoming a socialist state. This will prevent the free movement of people, and make it more expensive to hire people. Businesses are not going to hire people, and will try like hell to make their businesses as efficient as possible so they don’t have to.”

Mr D’Aguilar added: “The solution is not to increase the cost of labour. The solution is to make it as easy as possible to hire as many people as possible.

“I know they’re [the Government] going to throw the jeer that rich people don’t know what poor people are going through, and that Dionisio D’Aguilar is rich and that he doesn’t understand. But I’d prefer to have a job.

“This is going to turn the private sector off from employing people, and not everyone can currently get a job. They’ll say I’m insensitive, but they’re insensitive to that,” the FNM candidate continued.

“You start to increase the burden on the private sector to employ people, you’ll make it harder for the 11.6 per cent who are unemployment, the 25-30 per cent of 16-24 year-olds who are unemployed, to get a job. I think it’s madness.”

Key among employer concerns the major 67 per cent increase in the Employment Act’s redundancy pay ‘cap’.

While notice, or pay in lieu of notice, has been left unchanged, the Government has pressed forward with the two-thirds increase in the ‘cap’.

Line staff are currently entitled to a maximum 24 weeks or six months’ redundancy pay under the Employment Act, gaining two weeks for each year they have been employed up to the 12-year ‘cap’.

However, the Bill requires the ‘cap’ to be increased to 32 weeks (16 years) immediately upon enactment of the reforms. And, ultimately, the ‘cap’ for line staff redundancy pay is to be increased to 40 weeks some two years after the amendments are passed.

As for managerial staff, the existing 48 weeks (12 months/one year) redundancy pay maximum that they are due currently under the Employment Act is to be immediately increased to 64 weeks. Should the proposals pass, the ‘cap’ will ultimately be lifted to 80 weeks after two years.

Mr Gibson, addressing the House of Assembly yesterday, with trade union leaders and representatives packing the public gallery, argued that the changes to both Bills would strengthen protections and benefits for Bahamian workers.

He said too many were vulnerable to being made redundant at “a moment’s notice”, and were often unable to collect severance pay and other benefits due to them under the law from employers.

Mr Gibson said the changes also mandate that employers must accept a worker’s request to deduct union dues from their wages, and strengthen the workings of the Industrial Tribunal.

Mr D’Aguilar, though, said the Employment Act’s existing one-year redundancy pay ‘cap’ for managerial staff, who have been with a company for 12 years or more, was “generous”. Should the changes go through, employers may have to give long-serving managers more than a year-and-a-half’s pay when they are terminated.

“I think it’s crazy, absolutely crazy,” Mr D’Aguilar told Tribune Business. “I always thought the 48 weeks to pay off someone was generous, but now I’ve got to pay a year-and-a-half, or 80 weeks, to get rid of them.

“This is not going to help employment. People want a job to have a sense of value. Get through the emotion of rich persons giving benefits to the poor. We want to grow the economy, and keep people employed.”

Most of the proposed reforms appear to be a direct response to the situation at the Melia Nassau Beach Resort, where the hotel is no longer collecting union dues and paying them to the union, and Sandals Royal Bahamian’s termination last August of its near-600 strong workforce - an event some regarded as ‘union busting’.

Sandals, though, said that with no industrial agreement in effect between the Bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU) and the resort industry, it had no choice but to terminate its workforce to facilitate much-needed repairs.

And observers have pointed out that responsibility for the absence of a binding industrial agreement rests squarely with the BHCAWU, as it failed to initiate negotiations on changes it wanted prior to the previous deal’s expiry - resulting in employers continuing as if the latter was still in effect.

The proposed reforms to section 51 of the Industrial Relations Act appear to be an attempt to counter this, as they deem the terms and conditions of industrial agreements as automatically incorporated into individual workers’ contracts.

Other proposed amendments force employers to start collective bargaining talks within 45 days of receiving a trade union’s industrial agreement proposal - something that appears designed to counter situations such as the one where Sandals refused to treat and deal with the Bahamas Hotel, Maintenance and Allied Workers Union.