The government is making strides to ratify many of the conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
Labour Minister Dr Virginia Albert-Poyotte disclosed during a pre-cabinet press conference that the government is collaborating with the ILO to ensure that Saint Lucia upholds employment standards.
“So the ILO will be working with us to ratify a number of these conventions so that we comply with ILO standards. The Department of Labour is going through a major transformation,” she said.
Albert-Poyotte says the goal is to ensure that employers, employees and the Labour Department will cooperate to resolve industrial disputes. This, she says, is in hopes of limiting disputes between employers and their staff thereby ensuring business continues smoothly.
“We want to establish what we call the tripartite group, where you have the government, the trade union, and the employers working together. The whole idea is to ensure that there is industrial peace in the country,” she explained.
The Minister says the government will work to prevent extended business delays due to labour disputes. “We would engage more in preventative measures rather than trying to cure, so that when there are disputes between employers and employees, we can intervene as a government sometimes to resolve the matter before it escalates into major industrial action and causing problems in the country,” the veteran former trade union leader explained.
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I do hope the Department of Labour pays a close attention to Health & Safety at the workplace, especially the Construction companies such as C.O. William, Namalco, Nationwide. I noticed these companies are too relax towards Health & Safety.
And Why no mention of your inactive and dysfunctional tribunal you keep dumping cases on them knowing it will take years before the matter will be called while employers laugh in the face if victimized employees.
They are hurting workers more than the labor department and you and your government doesn’t seem to care.
The labour department is understaffed … please employ some more….
Please employe some more staff for this Ministry…..
I will be extremely honest – most businesses/organizations in St. Lucia be it government or NGOs need all their staff to first be trained in effective customer service. I live abroad and required a St. Lucian birth certificate to replace my baptism/birth certificate. I submitted all pertinent documents as required by the online instructions provided in order to do so. After several months, and numerous phone calls several times during the course of many many days – no one picked up the phone. This inefficiency went on for several months. To be honest, it is seriously disheartening that there has been no progression in St. Lucia even though we are in 2024.
The grand finale of this story – I literally had to obtain a lawyer and pay attorneys fees in order to obtain MY own birth certificate from St. Lucia — now make this sense. In addition, the folk in St. Lucia need to realize that no one needs to worship you, suck up to you or give you money/gifts for business/government transactions. Most of you will not survive outside of St. Lucia with that behavior – trust me. Godspeed.
They should give Mr Poyette the top job in the labour department
While this is a step in the right direction, why has this taken so long. The Minister knew this was the state of operations but let it fester. It’s three years since I have been given a dance around at the Labour Department including the Tribunal. Blatant disregard for the Law of the Land.
There aer 2 useless departments in the government. Namely the Labor Department and the Public Service Department. I want anyone to refute me. Too many people are on suspension for years, getting a salary and doing nothing.