CO-CHAIRMAN of the Public Sector Transformation Oversight Committee (P-STOC), Danny Roberts says that the success of public sector transformation will depend on consistency in ensuring that “dignity and respect” are shown to all types of work in the public service.

“The success of public sector transformation will depend, to a large extent, upon a consistent practice in public sector labour relations which conforms with the Labour Relations Code and sets out to recognise work as a social right and obligation, ensuring that dignity and respect is shown to all types of work in the public service,” Roberts told last Thursday’s 99th annual general meeting of the Jamaica Civil Service Association at Jacisera Park in Kingston.

Roberts noted that the success, so far, in meeting the “structural benchmarks” for public sector reform under the International Monetary Fund programme was an imperative, but that equally important must be efforts to win the confidence of public sector workers that the transformation process has something positive in it for them.

He stated that it is disheartening for senior managers in the public service to be operating on rotating three-month contracts, and for workers to be designated as ‘contract workers’ in order to deny them protection, rights and benefits in law.

He said that like 1938, there needs to be a broad alliance of support across all trade unions, including professional associations, to lobby for amendments to existing labour laws, and to ensure that all categories of workers enjoy protection and the basic rights that are important to human dignity.

Roberts, a former vice-president of the National Workers Union and member of the National Minimum Wage Advisory Commission, said that recent amendments to the Ontario Employment Standards Act has placed what it calls ‘reverse onus’ on employers to prove that a person is a contract worker and not an employee and, therefore, should be exempted from certain statutory provisions.

He noted that in the “Canadian experience”, where a person is misclassified and treated as a contract worker but is really an employee, the Ministry of Labour may commence a prosecution against the employer.

Roberts said that public sector transformation is a means of building quality public institutions, which has become an important determinant in the long-term economic growth that is required to sustain the country’s development.

He added that the Jamaica Civil Service Association must play a leading role in safeguarding and protecting public sector workers, and that part of their commitment in their centenary year must be to take on the single act of restoring dignity and respect to all categories of workers.

— Balford Henry