The Workers’ Rights Bill

La première version de la The Workers’ Rights Bill sera retiré au parlement par voie de motion le 6 Aout 2019 et une nouvelle version sera présentée.

The object of this Bill is to repeal the Employment Rights Act and replace it by a modern and comprehensive legislative framework with a view to addressing the shortcomings of the present legislation and to provide for new emerging forms of work.
2.The Bill, inter alia –
(a) gives more protection to workers against discrimination by widening the definition of “discrimination” to include impairment and to include different treatment to workers of a subsidiary company performing work of equal value as a worker employed by another subsidiary company of the parent company or the parent company, operating in the same line of business, on less favourable salary, terms and conditions of employment;
(b) protects workers against precarious employment by –
(i) restricting a fixed term contract to a work of a temporary nature;
(ii) considering the length of service of a worker on a fixed term contract as being continuous employment where the contract is renewed and where there is no break of 28 days between 2 fixed term contracts;
(c) gives a person who performs atypical work, such as online platform work, the status of a worker;
(d) provides for a compromise agreement to be vetted by a worker’s legal representative, trade union or representative of the Ministry responsible for the subject of labour and employment relations so as to protect workers where they are compelled to sign an agreement to their detriment;
(e) reconciles work with family by providing more flexible work arrangements, such as flexitime;
(f) provides for a recourse to a protective order to safeguard workers’ remuneration and for an advance payment from a Wage Guarantee
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Fund Account where an employer fails to pay remuneration to a worker;
(g) extends maternity benefits to a mother who adopts a child of up to 12 months old;
(h) harmonises core conditions of employment and provides for new benefits such as Juror’s leave and other special leaves;
(i) protects workers’ jobs by the setting up of a Redundancy Board; (j) guarantees workers a gratuity on retirement which will take into account their full length of service irrespective of the number of employers with whom they have been working with; and
(k) widens the scope of protection to workers against violence by making an employer vicariously responsible, in certain circumstances, for the act committed by a co-worker or any other person on a worker.