Although the focus of the Government’s town hall meeting on Sunday evening, November 18, was basically for the Road North and South constituents, the issues raised and discussed were in fact of island-wide interest and concern.
The main speakers at the meeting at Kels Candy, North Hill, were Mrs. Evalie Bradley, Elected Representative for Road North and Ministerial Assistant in the Ministry of Home Affairs; and Mr. Curtis Richardson, Elected Representative for Road South and Minister of Infrastructure. They were supported on various points of their discussions by other ministerial colleagues and all of them answered questions from a number of constituents.
The meeting was joined by Mrs. Blondel Cluff, the Anguilla Government’s UK/European Union Representative in London, and her colleague, Mr. Charles Wheeler. They are both in Anguilla for the reopening of the Princess Alexandra Hospital on Thursday, November 22.
Minister Curtis Richardson was of the view that “the Government of Anguilla had performed creditably over the past three and a half years.” He stressed that “we have done a fairly excellent job – and that is based upon the fact that when we came to office there were many challenges for us as, a Government, to overcome.”
Among the matters in his ministry that he spoke about was the Air Traffic Control Tower and Fire Hall Building at the Clayton Lloyd International Airport. “I want to thank the Chief Minister in particular for his support through his ministry,” he stated. “We did not have the money to start that building, but we made a determination to do so and to complete it for the people of Anguilla. You can see the results of that effort. The building is now there.”
Mr. Richardson was also pleased that, with the support of his colleagues, his ministry was able to forego the closure of the airport arising from technical difficulties there. He credited the Anguilla Air and Sea Ports Authority, whose Chairman, Mr. Marcel Fahie, for doing “an amazing job to deal with the shortcomings with the assistance of a grace period.”
He went on: “We were able to overcome many of the shortcomings, but the one that lingered for a long time was the struggle with the fire trucks which had serious mechanical issues. When the regulators came in they said the airport still had to be closed because we could not satisfy the requirement of discharging the fire extinguishing foam within three minutes at the Airport.”
He said that despite this challenge the decision was taken to test the skills of the firemen who had all passed it showing that, aside from the mechanical difficulties, they were taking their jobs seriously and were all very skilled.
Minister Richardson was pleased to report that the Government and his ministry were able to build a strong case for fire extinguishing appliances, and that sometime in the New Year two to three brand new fire trucks should arrive in Anguilla. It was announced earlier by the Fire and Rescue Service that two Rosenberg Panther fire trucks, one from Austria and the other from the United States and costing almost one million US dollars each, were already paid for. The money was provided under the UK Government Programme for Anguilla involving sixty million pounds in humanitarian aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma.
The Minister also spoke about the proposed public/private sector airport expansion project being worked on by teams from the Ministries of Infrastructure and Finance. “We have been able to get the first Letter of Entrustment, and we are just about two to three weeks away from having the second Letter of Entrustment from the UK Government,” he disclosed. “This will give us a lot of impetus to go ahead with the project.”
On the Blowing Point Port project, Mr. Richardson reported on the temporary work involving the privately-owned Big Jim Building which is being converted to a temporary passenger terminal pending the provision of a permanent structure later on.
Mr. Richardson spoke on the water situation on the island, now being provided for by a new company, Seven Seas, which operates in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. He looked forward to a better water service in Anguilla next year – and was grateful to the Chairman of the Anguilla Water Corporation, Mr. Chris Richardson, and members of the Board for their hard work. The Minister also mentioned road development including feeder roads in various communities.
Mrs. Evalie Bradley spoke, among other matters, on the Labour Relations Bill which recently had its first reading in the House of Assembly and which will, hopefully, become law by the end of the year. She said that the Labour Code, which long preceded the above Bill, was under discussion for almost two decades.
“We recognize the importance of labour in our socio-economic advancement and I believe that any well-intentioned employer, and other persons, should be happy to see a more up-to-date and modernized piece of legislation being enacted,” she observed.
Mr. Bradley stressed: “When the Minister (Mrs. Cora Richardson-Hodge) came into office that was one of her passions about having more social protection for our employees, and she set about to ensure that the Labour Code, was on the front burner.” And went on to speak she about the wide consultations held by the ministry on the Labour Code and the incorporation of the various comments and views into the redrafted legislation.
“That redrafted legislation went to the House of Assembly sometime in February [this year] and I believe that it was then that all hell broke loose when employers, particularly, were very much up in arms against some of the provisions,” Mrs. Bradley stated. “Some of the things they were against were vacation leave, severance pay, maternity leave pay, etc. We listened and were able to go back to the drafting board, and we have considered some of the observations and amendments incorporated into a new draft.
“One of the things that the Attorney General’s Chambers recommended was that we should take the Labour Code in stages. We have separated the Labour Code, somewhat, and we took out all those sections dealing with the employment of labour, working conditions, vacation leave and other provisions, and placed them into what is now referred to as the Labour Relations Bill. The intention is that later on we will also consider matters like the staff associations, health and safety issues, and at some stage everything will be incorporated into one document.”
The former Labour Commissioner continued: “For this last piece of legislation we have been getting some push backs particularly from employers who feel that it would be a serious impact on their businesses. For example, they feel they would be affected if they have to come up with severance pay for their employees. It would be a financial strain on employers if we were to back date the provisions for severance pay. It is recommended that… severance pay will take effect from the date that the Labour Relations Bill is passed into law.
“It seems that there is a little more protection for employees because, as it stands now, persons who have been working in establishments for 20 or 25 years, at the end of that time they go home with basically nothing. All the employers are required to do is to give the employees three months notice and they walk away with nothing. I think it is time for us to have more protection in the labour market for our employees.
“Another recommendation on which there was some push back was for vacation leave to be scaled depending on how long persons have been employed. For example, persons who have been employed for five years would probably get twelve days; five to ten years, fifteen days; fifteen to twenty-five years, twenty days vacation leave. The employers also indicated that would be a financial strain on them. In order to arrive at a compromise situation, a recommendation was made that all persons whether they were employed for a year or ten years, should be eligible only for twelve days vacation leave but that has been changed to fifteen days – that’s three additional days. I don’t think that any well-intentioned employer should have a problem with that.”
Mrs. Bradley further said: “Provision has also been made for things like paternity leave. This is something new for us where fathers can have at least two weeks home with their wife or significant other after childbirth. But this relates only to two weeks per year. So fathers who want to father three and four children a year, please note that the provision is only for one child – so they will have to choose which child they want to have the paternity leave for.”
She added: “I happy to report that the Labour Relations Bill is at an advanced stage of being passed into law, and I have no doubt that before the end of the year it will be law. It is about time that we have a more updated and balanced version of employment legislation for our employees. They have been squawking for some time about having no social justice in the workplace.”
