EMPLOYERS need not worry about penalties in the amendments to the Employment Relations Act (ERA) 2007 if they abide by the law, says Fiji Trade Union Congress national secretary Felix Anthony.
Mr Anthony’s comment comes in response to a statement by the Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation (FCEF) which said the amendments were very focused on penalising employers and business owners while increasing benefits for workers, regardless of company size, sector conditions or the overall state of the economy.
“It is for the rotten apples that these penalties have been put in,” Mr Anthony said.
“One of the aims of the employment relations review has been to plug the gaps, taking into account what actually happens on the ground at the workplace.
“There are some bad employers who actually habitually breach the laws, have unfair work practices and even steal from workers in terms of wages.”
Mr Anthony said those were areas the union had tried to address so that employers were held accountable.
“It really makes me suspicious that they complain about the penalties. I wonder if the real intention here is that they should be able to get away by breaching the law and not be penalised.
“If that’s what they want, that’s not how it’s going to work. I really think that these penalties have come about because of some bad employers that we have.”
Mr Anthony said the Ministry of Employment and Workplace Relations had great difficulty trying to enforce the laws because the existing penalties did not adequately serve as a deterrent for employers not to break the law.
“If there are penalties, I think they ought to look inwards and see why these penalties have been put in place.
“Like my own union, I have one case that is more than $2million in which an employer has not paid workers the right rate of pay. It’s been in court for five years now.
“If a worker steals, it becomes a criminal offence, he is reported to the police. He’ll probably end up in jail, but here we have employers stealing from workers and they get away scot-free but to make it worse, they continue doing that while we have matters in court.”
