Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment has moved to sig­nif­i­cant­ly over­haul Trinidad and To­ba­go’s labour and sev­er­ance frame­work, with Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste an­nounc­ing that long-await­ed amend­ments to re­trench­ment leg­is­la­tion have now been laid in Par­lia­ment.

Bap­tiste made this an­nounce­ment last Wednes­day while ad­dress­ing a com­mem­o­ra­tive event mark­ing ten years since the Arcelor­Mit­tal re­trench­ment ex­er­cise.

Bap­tiste said the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fit (Amend­ment) Bill 2026 rep­re­sents a mod­erni­sa­tion of ar­cha­ic law, and is de­signed to strength­en pro­tec­tions for work­ers fac­ing re­dun­dan­cy, in­sol­ven­cy, re­struc­tur­ing and in­dus­tri­al clo­sure, while en­sur­ing faster, fair­er and more en­force­able sev­er­ance process­es.

He said the re­forms widen the le­gal de­f­i­n­i­tion of re­dun­dan­cy to in­clude in­sol­ven­cy, re­ceiver­ship, au­toma­tion, re­struc­tur­ing and busi­ness clo­sures, while in­tro­duc­ing stronger con­sul­ta­tion re­quire­ments, en­hanced no­tice pro­ce­dures and re­vised sev­er­ance cal­cu­la­tions aligned with con­tem­po­rary wage struc­tures.

The bill al­so in­creas­es penal­ties for non-com­pli­ance, rais­es fines sig­nif­i­cant­ly and amends re­lat­ed leg­is­la­tion, in­clud­ing the Com­pa­nies Act and bank­rupt­cy and in­sol­ven­cy frame­work, to pri­ori­tise work­ers’ sev­er­ance claims in liq­ui­da­tion pro­ceed­ings, plac­ing them ahead of tax­es and oth­er statu­to­ry oblig­a­tions.

“Ten months lat­er, the bill has been laid in Par­lia­ment. They had ten years; we have tak­en de­ci­sive ac­tion,” Bap­tiste said, adding that the re­forms were de­vel­oped through com­par­a­tive analy­sis of ju­ris­dic­tions in­clud­ing Cana­da, the Unit­ed King­dom, Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica and Guyana.

He said the leg­is­la­tion is in­tend­ed to ad­dress sys­temic weak­ness­es ex­posed by past in­dus­tri­al clo­sures, par­tic­u­lar­ly cas­es such as Arcelor­Mit­tal, where work­ers were left vul­ner­a­ble dur­ing large-scale re­trench­ments.

Bap­tiste used the plat­form to reaf­firm Gov­ern­ment’s broad­er labour pol­i­cy di­rec­tion, say­ing in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions re­form must be paired with eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, stronger MSME de­vel­op­ment and ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems to de­tect in­dus­tri­al de­cline be­fore mass job loss­es oc­cur.

He stressed that for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment would re­main im­por­tant but ar­gued it must be bal­anced with poli­cies that build na­tion­al re­silience and pro­tect work­ers from sud­den dis­place­ment.

The min­is­ter al­so paid trib­ute to the Steel­work­ers’ Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SUTT), com­mend­ing its sus­tained ad­vo­ca­cy over the past decade and de­scrib­ing trade unions as “es­sen­tial part­ners in na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment” and cen­tral to main­tain­ing in­dus­tri­al har­mo­ny.

SUTT pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Bai­ley gave an emo­tion­al ad­dress, say­ing the con­se­quences of the clo­sure re­flect­ed “weak leg­is­la­tion and weak lead­er­ship” at the time.
He added that work­ers were aban­doned not on­ly by their em­ploy­er but al­so the State.

“What oc­curred ten years ago was a di­rect re­sult of an­ti-work­ing-class leg­is­la­tion,” Bai­ley said, adding that stronger laws now be­ing pro­posed must be ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed and en­forced.

While wel­com­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s move to amend labour leg­is­la­tion, he urged pol­i­cy­mak­ers to go fur­ther to en­sure out­dat­ed laws detri­men­tal to work­ers are ful­ly re­moved from the statute books.

The Arcelor­Mit­tal clo­sure in 2016 re­mains one of the most sig­nif­i­cant in­dus­tri­al shut­downs in re­cent his­to­ry, with last­ing so­cial and eco­nom­ic con­se­quences for hun­dreds of work­ers and their fam­i­lies.