The Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation says they are yet to see the Employment Relations Bill tabled in Parliament for the first and second readings, and they will provide its comprehensive comments after a thorough review of the Bill.
FCEF CEO, Edward Bernard says in April this year FCEF informed the Minister for Employment, Agni Deo Singh, that they will not be endorsing the draft Bill to progress to Parliament, in its current form.
Bernard says the reason was that only one meeting (5th March 2025) of the Employment Relations Advisory Board (ERAB) was convened after the close of public consultations and the draft Bill still contained many provisions that will gravely impact employment opportunities, business sustainability, investor confidence and economic growth.
He says on 20th March 2025, they received the 188 page Bill and since then they understand that the Ministry had submitted it to the Solicitor General’s OƯice for their review.
Bernard says they now see it tabled in Parliament after 4 and a half months.
He says they did attempt to negotiate for the Bill to be brought back to ERAB after the SG’s Office was done with it so they know exactly the contents of the Bill before it went to Parliament.
Bernard says unfortunately, this is a big blind spot and they will make submissions to the Parliamentary Standing Committee.
FCEF hopes that sections relating to absolute liability, criminalization of contract breaches, excessive fines; excessive powers of labour oƯicers; broad definition of harassment which contradicts with existing laws; unclear definition of wage theft and unfairly penalizing of Directors for administrative errors or financial diƯiculties beyond their control; the right to strike beyond disputes only arising relating to collective agreements; the removal of expiry dates on collective agreements; allowing workers to choose between an individual contract of service or a collective agreement; unfair dismal and lack of clear conditions and limitations, creating uncertainty for employers; the Non Compete Clause and the bargaining fee have all been addressed.
