PRINCIPAL consultant and attorney-at-law at Employment Matters Caribbean, Carla-Ann Harris Roper is asserting that the impact of the novel coronavirus on the Jamaican labour market will lead to major legislative changes.

Harris Roper, in speaking with the Jamaica Observer, said employers are going to start exploring more aggressively, the possibility of working off site.

“After they’ve come through this big teething period and see that it can work for them, they are going to explore how they can have more people working off site. If they have a robust IT system with the various firewalls and protective data, you’re going to find that after we are done with this, some people [employers] are going to just migrate people or seek to migrate people into home working,” she said. “Most [people] have [a] laptop, access to internet. Employers are going to find that it could cost them much less than having somebody actually come into a building.”

Harris Roper said workers are going to pitch the idea of working from home, especially having done it without insurmountable hassle.

Moreover, the attorney explained that a paradigm shift will occur.

“This is going to create a whole new, different world. In places where these things are routine your employer has to come to your home, check to see if you have the requisite place to do this work. You can’t just say you’re going to work from home and lay down in your bed in your night clothes. They actually come and do a risk assessment [and] see whether or not, depending on what you’re doing, if any of their material or data can be exposed or so on. You go into a whole new world where occupational health and safety comes into the play,” she explained.

Harris Roper added: “Your home can now be defined as a workplace. Whilst they are working for you at home, what are the liabilities of an employer? Right away I can see this as something that is going to be near and present for people. We are going to have to look at our labour laws. We’re going to have to look at putting in some structures in place to be proactive in how to deal with, for example, a lay off or a short working. How do you address it in a situation like this.”

Further, Harris Roper said a pandemic is not the only thing that can cause such a disruption, and as a result, we must prepare adequately.

“It could be a very bad hurricane, it could be an earthquake that can impact certain parts of the population and how they work and continue to work in jeopardy. If so, what should happen with the person’s earning capacity and how would the employer be able to manage?”