Minister for Employment, Productivity and Industrial Relations Jone Usamate yesterday clarified redundancy issues for a prominent island resort.

Mr Usamate highlighted that he was aware that 18 workers of this prominent resort had been made redundant.

“The Ministry will conduct an investigation into this matter, in particular to ascertain whether workers have been treated in accordance with the provisions of the Employment Relations Act (ERA) 2007,” he said.

“Under the Act, every employer who wishes to make workers redundant, must give not less than 30 days’ notice to the Permanent Secretary for Employment, Productivity and Industrial Relations, and the workers themselves and their representatives.

“The employer must also give workers and their representatives as early as possible, an opportunity for consultation on measures to be taken to avert, or to minimise terminations, and measures to mitigate the adverse effects on any termination of the concerned workers.

“All employers must pay workers their wages due, annual holiday in addition to the one week’s pay for every completed year of service to the workers for redundancy payment.”

Redundancy can only be applied due to economical, structural and technological reasons.

The Minister urged employers and workers to discuss in good faith the process of redundancy and ensure that all dues to workers are paid and the Ministry will be conducting investigations on workers complaints on any non-compliance under the redundancy process.

The notice of redundancy from the prominent island resort was received by the Ministry on May 1, 2018.

Source: DEPTFO News

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