Senator Brown wants Parliament to review ‘abusive’ fixed-term employment contracts
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Opposition Senator Lambert Brown has called for a review of Jamaica’s employment laws, in particular any that addresses the controversial fixed-term contracts which he says are being abused by some employers, including in the lucrative tourism industry.
Brown, a veteran trade unionist, made the call in a motion he moved in the Senate on Friday.
He pointed out that during recent protests by tourism workers for better terms and conditions, including better wages, the fixed term contracts were cited as a bone of contention. Brown said the abuse of contract workers by some employers, was spread across all sectors.
In his motion, he also cited that during the protests by tourism workers, “One such term of employment highlighted by such strikes is the precarious, repeated fixed-term contracts of employment”.
Continuing, he said:
“And whereas such practice can be abusive and oppressive to workers, not only in the tourism sector, but throughout the other sections of our economy;
“And whereas our Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act promulgated in 1975 provides that an industrial dispute can be over the engagement or non-engagement of a worker, which brings this egregious abuse of the contract work devise into conflict with the spirit and intent of Jamaican labour laws;
“And whereas the egregious abuse of the contract work devise is at variance with the decent work agenda of the International Labour Organisation;
“And whereas different members of the Senate have from time to time called for action to arrest the spread of the contract work device which undermines the establishment of good industrial relations practices;
“Be it resolved that this Senate expresses its abhorrence to the abuse of fixed term contracts by some employers in Jamaica;
“And be it further resolved that the Senate appoints a select committee to consider and recommend possible legislative approaches to eliminate the abuse of the contract work device as a means of denying workers the full range of employment-related rights and job security to which they should be legally entitled, and with respect to which they need, and deserve effective legal protection”.
