Minister of Labour and Social Partnership Relations, the Honourable Colin Jordan: "Thank you, Madam Chair. I would first want to introduce the team that sits with me. To my right is Permanent Secretary Dr. Karen Best. To my left is the Chief Labour Officer Mrs. Claudette Hope-Greenidge. Behind the Permanent Secretary is the Deputy Permanent Secretary, Ms. Marva Howell. Next to her is our senior accountant, Mr. Julian Ifle. Next to him, the Director of the Barbados Employment and Career Counseling Services, Mrs. Yvette Walcott-Dennis. The Registrar of the Employment Rights Tribunal, Mr. Winston Chase. Mrs. Walcott-Dennis is behind him and next to her is the program manager for the Human Resource Strategy Unit, Mr. Lynch. The Head of the Occupational Safety and Health Section, Mrs. Alison Elcock. Behind her, Mr Ricardo Norville, who is the Director of the Manpower Research and Physical Unit. The executive officer is next to him, Mr Felix Newton and the officer, Mrs Rhonda Farley, the coordinator of the HIV-AIDS and the Anti Discrimination and Discrimination Unit is sitting next to him.
Madam Chair. The Ministry of Labour and Social Partnership Relations is a Ministry that people often associate primarily with disputes and dispute resolution. Our approach this morning is, given that we are sitting in the well of the Parliament and given that we are in the process of speaking to our Estimates, our approach is to indicate to the public, why should the taxpayers dollars of the working people of this country in the amount as indicated by the Clerk, seven million plus, why should that money be spent on a Ministry of Labour and Social Partnership Relations? And I think it is important for the country to hear how that money is spent. What does this Ministry do?
We are associated with and play a very important role in the maintenance of good industrial relations in this country. We do it by advising. We do it by conciliating. We do it by educating workers and employers about their rights. We do it by attempting to resolve and in many cases resolving disputes as they arise and before they become larger disputes. We also facilitate the work of the Employment Rights Tribunal, which is the adjudicating body that manages and oversees the Employment Rights Act. That is the Labour Department. And many Barbadians are aware of that because Barbadians call to ask advice - I've just been laid off, just being terminated.
The Ministry also oversees legislation, all the labour-related legislation. And so whether it is safety and health at work or prevention of discrimination, the Employment Rights Act, Holiday with Pay; these are a number of pieces of legislation that we oversee and the Ministry is, as we speak, working on, well in the final stages, we have submitted already to Chief Parliamentary Counsel the Regulations, Draft Regulations for the Safety and Health at Work Act. We have about to present to the Parliament of this country a piece of legislation, a Bill to prevent discrimination in employment. We are reviewing the Employment Rights Act. We have drafted a Cabinet Paper on paternity leave. We are doing the research to prepare a Cabinet Paper on minimum wage. And these are just some of the work that this ministry is undertaking.
The Ministry also provides the strategy that would inform where the education and training priorities ought to be. And so the HRD Strategy Unit is the unit working with the Manpower Research Unit to identify those areas in the future where we will need as a country the skills and the expertise to develop the country and to go into those new areas.
The HRD Strategy Unit does that by preparing its strategy document. It is also responsible for the First Jobs Programme, which I will come back to if I have, but I will have time either now or in the question segment. The Barbados Employment and Career Counseling Service is that arm of the Ministry set up to assist people in becoming ready for work, transitioning, counselling and guidance. That unit is responsible for that aspect of labour management. It is also importantly responsible for external work programmes. And as a Ministry we take very seriously our responsibility to find opportunities for our people to fulfil their dreams and aspirations. And so we have a programme in Canada and we are working really hard exploring possibilities in the United States. We have just been able to launch an opportunity in the United Kingdom for workers of Barbados who are anxious to grasp these opportunities and move, move on with their lives and support their lives, support themselves, support their families, but importantly also to support their country.
The Manpower Research Unit I spoke to briefly earlier as it relates to providing the information that will say to us as a country and say to our education and training institutions, for example, we will need people in this area of technology or that area of technology; the blue economy; the green economy; oil and gas. That unit is the unit that provides the statistical information, provides the - we often say that good decisions, good management decisions are based on good information. The Manpower Research and Statistical Unit is that very small unit, but with a pretty large responsibility for providing us with the information that will say to us and to say to our educational institutions, these are the areas that we need to move forward in over the next five years, over the next 10 years, as the case may be.
This Ministry, Madam Chair, is also responsible for the Social Partnership, the relations among the partners, government, workers and their representatives, businesses and their representatives. The Secretariat, the seat of that relationship coordination sits within this Ministry as well. And I think much of Barbados knows but I think it is still important to remind us that this social partnership has been a vital cog in the wheel of rescuing and rebuilding the country at this juncture in our history. And so keeping the partnership together, offering guidance, facilitating the partnership, because partnership partnership is a word but if partnership is to mean something, then there has to be that focus and that functioning of the different parts and located in this Ministry is that functioning of pulling the partners together and facilitating their involvement in the project of nation-building.
The Ministry of Limited Social Partnership Relations is also responsible for social justice and this is a matter that cannot be overemphasized. Every country, if it is to reach its full potential, must be able to look after everybody in the country. It must be able to facilitate their inclusion. It must be able to give voice to those whose voices are not heard. It is if the society is not to descend into chaos, it is to be that function that attempts to maintain a certain harmony, harmony not based on force, but a harmony that is based on an understanding that all of us are a part of the society and all of us have a role to play in the development of that society. So that as a society develops and as it seeks to develop on its economy, we have to include everybody. And we have to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to play their role, play their part in the building of the society and the building of the economic infrastructure that the society superstructure is based on.
The Social Justice Committee has included, establish early in 2019, it includes and involves and brings together representation from all aspects, all groupings in our society. So that the traditional social partners are included; that is to say, government, workers and their representatives, business and their representatives, but civil society is also fully included in the Social Justice Committee. That committee that is set up to monitor, to foster and to encourage social justice in the country. That committee includes representation from faith-based organizations, representation from the cooperative movement, representation from organisations representing people living with disabilities, from organisations representing the LBGT community, from organisations representing those parent-teachers associations, a wide cross-section, women, men, young people - all are represented in some way on the Social Justice Committee. And that committee is the committee that brings together those organisations, those people, those who represent segments of our population that may be considered vulnerable, as well as those that may not be considered vulnerable, but to ensure that at the table where there is need to input on policy and policy direction, that there is a body of people representing a wide range of interests, a wide range of segments of the population that have the opportunity to have their voices heard.
Now, that brings me finally as my 10 minutes wraps up to the third sector. This Ministry is also responsible for third sector relations and we have come to office, madam Chair, recognizing that even in the best of times, a government cannot provide for every aspect of a country's development. We just do not have all the resources - even in the best of times and we did not come to government to serve at the best of times. And so we recognize that third sector is important, that it must be facilitated, not hindered, not hamstrung, but facilitated. And so this the Ministry has the responsibility of facilitating the development of the third sector - civil society.
And just by way of explanation, we talk a lot about the public sector. Most people know what the public sector is, government and government-related agencies. The private sector, businesses, commercial entities. The third sector - civil society, non-government, non-purely commercial. That segment of the population that speaks, for example, to organizations who want that faith-based organizations, those who help in many areas in the health care sector - cancer organizations - all those other organizations, civil society organizations, whether they be known as NGOs, CBOs as in community-based organizations, they all are part of the third sector; charities as well.
And our Ministry has a responsibility for facilitating their development and as we speak, we are preparing, well have prepared a Draft Cabinet Paper for NGO legislation, which has gone out for comment from partner Ministries and that legislation will help to bring some regularity to the sector. It will help to build a sector that is robust, that is seen internationally as one that can be invested in. It would also bring some clarity to the fiscal framework within which those organizations will function, bring that level of certainty so that they know what they can do, how government will partner with them, and how they will be enabled to do the best job that they can given the zeal and the passion that populates that segment of our country, the third sector. Thank you very much Madam Chair."
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