The Min­istry of Labour is in the process of re­draft­ing the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act and the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty Act, says the deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the min­istry, Lor­ris Al­fred.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at a sym­po­sium on labour dis­pute res­o­lu­tion, host­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­ga­ni­za­tion's Caribbean of­fice on Wednes­day, Al­fred said the two laws are among 13 pieces of leg­is­la­tion per­tain­ing to labour that are cur­rent­ly be­ing re­draft­ed.

She said the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act came in­to be­ing in the 1970's "so with the ad­vance­ments in the labour re­la­tions land­scape, we saw the need to amend some of the pro­vi­sions in the Act."

Al­fred said the amend­ments will make the Act not on­ly more cur­rent, but al­so more ap­plic­a­ble to sit­u­a­tions in the cur­rent labour en­vi­ron­ment.

Last No­vem­ber, Min­is­ter of Labour Stephen Mc Clashie ap­point­ed 13 mem­bers to the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee, which is man­dat­ed to pro­vide the con­tin­u­ous re­view of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act (IRA) in keep­ing with the ad­vance­ment and changes in the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate, both re­gion­al­ly and glob­al­ly, and al­lows for the adap­tion of our in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions poli­cies and prac­tices.

Dr. Hy­acinth Guy re­turned as the chair of the com­mit­tee, whose oth­er mem­bers in­clude Sabi­na Gomez, Sani­ka Tyson and Elon Mayo rep­re­sent­ing gov­ern­ment; Ke­ston Nan­coo, Di­anne Joseph and Lynet­th Bhairos­ingh rep­re­sent­ing em­ploy­ers; Clifton Simp­son and Clyde El­der rep­re­sent­ing work­ers; Paul Bal­want and Coreen Cop­land-Camp­bell rep­re­sent­ing acad­e­mia; Emer­son Mar­tin and Car­ol David Kendell rep­re­sent­ing in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions/hu­man re­source pro­fes­sion­als and Ser­vaus Samuel serv­ing as the tech­ni­cal sec­re­tary.

Calls for up­dat­ing of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act have been made by busi­ness and trade union groups, as well as by colum­nists and in ed­i­to­ri­als for many years.