Govt looking to update severance payment law

Government will be revisiting Barbados’ severance pay legislation to correct deficiencies highlighted during the current impasse between employers and employees as a consequence of the fallout from the Coronavirus pandemic.

Updating a virtual International Labour Organisation Decent Work Team and Caribbean Labour Organisation meeting yesterday on the status of labour in Barbados, Minister of Labour Colin Jordan said Barbados would be addressing the situation “where businesses that are levelled for severance and are neglecting to, or in some cases refusing to make those severance payments when those severance payments become due”.

“We have to look at how we make sure that businesses are held accountable so that if the government has to finance the claims up front, that there is a guarantee that the business some time thereafter meets it its obligations,” he said.

The Labour Minister said claims to severance “sometimes take too long and we have started to expedite the process (and) some more work has to be done on that.” (GC)

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