Gail Alexan­der

T&T has come a long way, but still can't seem to set­tle dis­putes about wages, Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol Mc Leod has said. Mc Leod de­liv­ered the point as he pi­lot­ed leg­is­la­tion to in­crease ma­ter­ni­ty leave from 13 to 14 weeks. In tan­dem with the bill, Mc Leod al­so moved to re­peal the Mas­ters and Ser­vants leg­is­la­tion, which has been in force since 1938 and is geared to dis­ci­plin­ing ser­vants.

Mc Leod's re­mark about wage dis­putes came as he spoke about the Mas­ters and Ser­vants or­di­nance. With the new ma­ter­ni­ty ben­e­fits law, T&T will be the first coun­try in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean to pro­vide paid ma­ter­ni­ty leave of 14 weeks. The leg­is­la­tion is de­signed to bring T&T in line with in­ter­na­tion­al labour con­ven­tions. It is de­signed to give ex­pec­tant moth­ers the op­tion to with­draw from work in the lat­er stages of their preg­nan­cy and al­low them some time to re­cu­per­ate af­ter child­birth.

Mc Leod said the bill was a key com­po­nent of Gov­ern­ment's labour agen­da, in which the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship had com­mit­ted to high­light­ing work­ers' rights and mak­ing them "part of the process". "This bill demon­strates our re­solve to ful­fil our com­mit­ment to the peo­ple," Mc Leod added, al­so not­ing oth­er move­ment in the labour sphere.

He said there had been a steady in­crease in the par­tic­i­pa­tion of women in the labour mar­ket glob­al­ly. He al­so said there were some "18th-cen­tu­ry" places in T&T where women do not get the nor­mal ma­ter­ni­ty leave or none at all. Mc Leod said Gov­ern­ment was aware that longer leave would in­cur costs.

"But the ben­e­fits to women, chil­dren, fam­i­lies and en­ter­pris­es out­weigh the costs in so­cial and eco­nom­ic terms," the min­is­ter added. Mc Leod not­ed that the law was be­ing pro­posed just af­ter last Thurs­day's In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day. Em­ploy­ers will not be re­quired to pay for the ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od of ma­ter­ni­ty leave, since it will be fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Sys­tem, Gov­ern­ment in­di­cat­ed re­cent­ly.