In other labour news, in October NTUCB President Luke Martinez lamented in the Senate that government was dragging its feet in passing the Occupational Safety and Health bill, which the labour movement lobbied for consistently and over many years.
Two fatal accidents have occurred on work/construction sites this year alone, one in August and another in October, both as a result of operating/ or being in use of construction equipment and or machinery.
So is government to blame for not rushing the OSH? Today we spoke with the minister of labor, who gave us an update on the bill. He claims that they are wrapping up their final recommendations and revisions to the 69 page document.
Oscar Requena, Minister of Labor
"This has been a work in progress and I think it's very important that I outline the timeline of the various activities that have been happening as you are aware we had to actually write the unions, the national trade union Congress of Belize. We wrote them so that they would be able to make their submissions to our ministry in terms of the OSH bill, and after a very long time they did make their submissions, and immediately after making their submissions, what we did was we put together a working committee comprised of the various partners, the tripartite partners, and other agencies. And what we did is the working committee immediately reviewed the submissions that were made by the unions as well as our very own submissions from our staff. Once that was completed, that revision was completed. We actually then started the process of the stakeholder consultation and basically there are three big groups of stakeholders that we are consulting with, and I am happy to say that that has gotten off the ground. The first one is just our public partners to government ministries and other agencies were consulted for their input and views. We have completed that, and I believe that it was yesterday that we also had another very important consultation in which we consulted with the unions and the business community and again that went very well. Very good recommendations were made we have taken those things into account and then the final consultation has to do really with the industry the big companies and that is coming up very soon once that is completed, we go back to the drawing board to look at all the recommendations compile all the recommendations to tidy up the work and then we will get ready to, and I must say I think it's very important that we understand that this OSH bill is a very long bill. We are talking about something like 69 pages so it's a very big document. So we are going to review that get it ready and then we take it to cabinet with all the recommendations we made cabinet is going to get an opportunity to be able to review to make their recommendations and we are hoping that all of this work is going to get done by December And then, once that is complete cabinet has an opportunity to look at it and make contributions and recommendations. We then get ready to take that bill to the house. And I'm going to say that we made a commitment that we are going to ensure that we take that bill to the house and we are going to pass the OSH bill to ensure that our workers are protected across this country."
Reporter:
"So I guess you're trying to ask the president to just be patient with you all at this point."
Oscar Requena, Minister of Labor
"Well listen, we made it very clear from the very beginning as a ministry we are committed and we have been working diligently with all our partners. The unions included and I just want everybody to understand and appreciate that this is a lot of work And if we are going to get it done, we must do it right and that is why it has taken us some time to be able to go through this process and we want to make sure that everybody affected impacted in one way or the other has an opportunity to be able to make their contributions and at the end of the day the end product is going to be one that can work for Belizeans."
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