The Labour Department is stepping up efforts to raise awareness of employment rights and responsibilities.
This, following the recent hosting of an awareness programme aimed at helping employees better understand the laws governing their working conditions.
The session focused on basic employment conditions, covering issues such as employment contracts, working hours, overtime pay, sick leave, maternity leave and entitlements, including gratuity and severance pay, when employment ends.
The Acting Labour Commissioner Marcilla Frith-Mulcare says many disputes brought to the Labour Department stem from misunderstandings about these matters, which could often times be avoided.
The programme focused on understanding “your legal rights and your responsibilities as an employee. We looked at one section of the law which is about your basic employment conditions and someone may ask why does this matter? It matters because most of the disputes that come to the Labor Commissioner or to the Labor Department begins with a simple misunderstanding. Most of the times it’s about my contract, about my hours, it’s about my overtime pay, should I get leave, should I get maternity, should I get sick leave, how many sick days am I allowed or you will find that when that employment comes to an end, persons are asking what is my gratuity and my due severance pay.”
Mrs. Mulcare noted that “often what I find is if both the employer and the employee had known the law from the start then these problems would not occur. We had a good turnout of 76 percent that was 19 out of the 25 targeted employees.”
She says it the Labour Department is on a drive and is planning more sessions for employers and employees, “so we are asking especially private sector persons please be on the lookout for our awareness programs because you usually hear that saying knowledge prevents conflicts. It actually builds trust between the employers and the employees and we if we have workplaces that understand their legal rights then workplaces will be more productive and employers and employees will be more respectful to each other.”