The Fiji Trade Union Congress has criticised the Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation for its repeated delays and shifting stance on the Employment Relations Bill review, accusing it of acting in bad faith by retracting previously agreed positions, failing to attend public consultations, and resisting compliance with ILO Core Conventions, particularly regarding collective bargaining, workers’ rights and enforcement of labour laws.
While responding to a statement by FCEF, FTUC National Secretary Felix Anthony says they are no longer surprised with FCEF’s recent retraction of its position in the last meeting.
He says this review has been in place since 2012, some 13 years now and FCEF has been involved in this process all along.
Anthony says the problem with FCEF is that they have had during this period about 5 different CEOs and a change in their executives.
He says the most recent CEO was appointed late last year and has not been part of any of these tripartite meetings so he has no knowledge of either the process or the discussions and agreements that have taken place over the years.
The National Secretary says most recently, FCEF has included in their team Jon Apted who attended the last meeting of the Employment Relations Advisory Board on the 5th March.
He says in that meeting Apted, who led the FCEF team, expected to restart the entire review of the Employment Relations Bill.
Anthony says this meant that all the work that has been put into the draft Bill had to be disregarded.
He says that was not acceptable and they believe the Government was not prepared to continue discussions for another few years.
The National Secretary says the strategy that FCEF has applied has been to delay this process.
Anthony says the process called for public consultations which the Government agreed to and during these public consultations, he claims no one from FCEF bothered to attend but FTUC attended almost all these public consultations.
He stresses that there needs to be some closure at some point in time in this review as it cannot go on indefinitely.
Anthony says the terms of reference were agreed between FCEF, Government and FTUC and the review was carried out within those terms.
He says the FCEF complained about fines and the Government addressed the issue by reducing fines drastically to which FTUC disagreed, however, that is a call that the Government made in its own wisdom.
Anthony says many other provisions of the draft were addressed taking into account FCEF’s disagreement and issues raised by FCEF in the statement are a surprise to FTUC.
He claims they were not raised until Apted appeared on the scene as FCEF, in the tripartite consultations had no issues.
Anthony says it is clear that FCEF is not in agreement to ensure compliance with ILO Core conventions that Fiji has ratified and obligated to respect.
He says the most fundamental of these are Conventions 87 and 98 which is the Right to Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining and they FCEF still insisting on individual contracts as against collective bargaining.
He says FCEF also is insisting that workers should not have the right to choose whether to belong to a union or not.
Anthony says the Freedom of Association right is that of the worker and not the employer where the worker chooses to join or not to join and the employer has an obligation to give that choice to the worker.
He stresses the right to join the union has little meaning if the right to collective bargaining is denied by imposition of individual contracts.
Anthony says individual contracts were introduced by the previous Government to undermine trade unions and FCEF was extremely happy because that gave employers unlimited power to impose whatever conditions of work they desired and in breach of ILO Core Conventions and even the Constitution Fiji that was imposed.
He claims it is the same FCEF who annually attend ILO Conference in Geneva and gleefully pledged to uphold the principles the ILO is upholding.
The National Secretary says the story is quite the opposite when they get back home, like the previous Government and it has become clear that FCEF is not able to adjust to the change of Government and to ensure that Fiji’s labour laws are in compliance with international standards.
He says they wish to live in the past.
Anthony says the FTUC makes no secret of the fact that some bad employers need to be penalised for wage theft which in some cases have run into millions of dollars.
He says stealing is a crime; there is absolutely no reason why employers need to be exempted and similarly, “Union Busting” is a breach of workers fundamental rights.
Anthony says the message from employers is that there is no need to join unions when you can get those benefits for free, thus weakening unions.
He stresses that this has to stop as the Right to Strike is a fundamental right and this was agreed to by FCEF in the consultations earlier just as Unions had agreed that the right to lockout workers was a right of employers so long as procedures were followed.
He has also highlighted that the enforcement of labour laws are important and labour officers need to have the powers to enforce laws otherwise, these laws are of no value whatsoever.
He says harassment and bullying at the workplace are a common occurrence more particularly where women are employed and no one, including FCEF must condone any form of harassment or bullying.
He says provisions in this regard have been strengthened but FCEF seems to not like them.
Anthony says they prefer the existing laws that are ineffective and let employers continue with harassment and intimidation at the workplace and they continue to complain about minimum wage even though they are fully aware that the current minimum wage is well below the poverty line.
He says there must be some shame in this, but that seems beyond FCEF.
Anthony says the FTUC has made it clear on many occasions that the review has been discussed, negotiated, debated and they have arrived at a final draft.
He agrees that FTUC is unhappy with some provisions which they believe could have been improved upon but they understand that they can never have everything they desire in the laws no matter how much they talk.
He says they are saddened by the position taken by FCEF as in the last meeting, it was agreed by all that written submissions would be considered by the Ministry and that both FTUC and FCEF were free to make further submissions which the Ministry would consider.
Anthony says the FTUC has made written submissions and it was agreed that the Bill will proceed for legal vetting and to Cabinet.
He adds this is again another retraction from FCEF and is indeed a demonstration of bad faith.
The Bill is expected to be debated in the April Parliament sitting.
Stay tuned for the latest news on our radio stations
