KINGSTON, Jamaica — Local contractors in the construction industry, and trade unions representing their employees, are scheduled to sign a new labour management agreement this morning.

However, the trade unions are concerned about the erosion of the effectiveness of the agreement, which is at the level of the Joint Industrial Council (JIC) for the industry, but does not include expatriate contractors who refuse to recognize some of the terms of the agreement.

The agreement, which is signed at the end of January every two years, includes traditional provisions unique to the local construction industry, including end-of-project bonus payments given to workers as well as fairly generous overtime payments.

However, the provisions only cover local contractors/builders who are members of the Incorporated Masterbuilders Association of Jamaica (IMAJ).

Major expatriate contractors, such as China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), are not members of the IMAJ and do not subscribe to the agreement.

Vice-president of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), Alden Brown, says he is concerned that with the overwhelming majority of the contractors currently going to overseas contractors, including those involved in major hotel and infrastructure developments across the country, the effectiveness of the JIC has been eroding and the agreement is becoming ineffective.

“We are prostituting our skilled construction industry workers in the name of foreign investments,” Brown told OBSERVER ONLINE yesterday.

“The construction industry is in limbo due to the attitude of the foreign contractors. They do not welcome trade union involvement on their sites, they do not pay JIC rates and they do not recognize the rights of the workers based on the provisions of the agreement,” Brown said.

He added that the major issue has been the inability of the trade unions to get the expatriates to recognise them as representing their workers on the sites, as they refuse to respond to numerous requests for representational rights polls and often fire workers who are understood to have signed forms to join the unions.

“Trade union recognition is one of the most basic rights of Jamaican workers, but they do not recognise this right despite the provisions of the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act, and the local contractors have been demoted to second and third string contractors,” Brown said.

Brown added that the unions are hoping that the Ministry of Labour and Social Security find a way to get the foreigners to observe the provisions of the LRIDA this year, to avoid an increase in conflicts between the trade unions and foreign contractors.

The new JIC agreement will be signed today at 10:00 am at the IMAJ headquarters, Oxford Park Avenue in Kingston.

Balford Henry