AN employer could be slapped with a $500,000 fine for breaching any law under the amended Employment Relations Act (ERA).
Constitutional lawyer Jon Apted told The Fiji Times yesterday that one of the biggest changes in the ERA was that a lot of rules which allowed workers to claim compensation were being turned into criminal offences.
According to him, the ministry will have the authority to take legal action against the employer in addition to allowing employees to seek compensation for missing pay.
“These new offences they’ve created are what’s called strict liability offences,” Mr Apted said.
“Normal offences is when you don’t get charged and convicted, unless you meant what you did.
“If it was accidental that you didn’t pay the wages, you have committed a crime.
“These new offences are strict liability, and employer will be liable even though they didn’t mean to do it, or if it was an accident done by somebody else.
“Under this new legislation, all employers will be strictly liable for any of the breaches and the fines are massive, up to $500,000 maximum.”
The most notable example is the criminalisation of sexual harassment where it’s not just sexual harassment by one employee against another, it can also occur from a stranger at work if the employer did not take reasonable precautions to stop it.
Employers might be fined if they fail to provide their employees with sexual harassment training.
“I think what I need to emphasise is within ERA, within the ministry of employment, within the public, everybody thinks that when they hear the word ’employer’, they think of big companies,” he said.
“The Employment Relations Act applies to every employer who employs somebody else.
“So that includes every single individual who engage a domestic worker, a house maid, a gardener.
“The ERA as amended will apply to you.”
