Fear not

ACTING Chief Labour Officer (CLO), Victor Felix, is encouraging victims of sexual harassment in the workplace to report the matter to the Labour Department without fear.

He was speaking to the media on the sidelines of the Labour Management Relations seminar hosted by the Department in the Warrens Office Complex, which brought together a wide cross-section of employees to discuss various aspects of legislation which will affect them directly or indirectly in the workplace.

According to Felix, “The Act makes every effort and ample provisions and in other supporting legislation to say that people can be reassured that if they have an issue in the workplace that they should feel free to come forward and have it addressed.

“A good thing about the legislation is that persons are bound to keep the information confidential so the issue of just spreading person’s name in the workplace cannot be tolerated under the legislation. If you have an issue it would be addressed and both the CLO and the Employment Rights Tribunal they are open to a range of remedies,” he explained.

In fact, the CLO says sometimes a simple apology would suffice while other times the matter has to be approached “from greater levels of discipline”.

“But there are a range of options and persons should feel that their matter would be appropriately addressed.”

He revealed that since the legislation came into effect in December and in the public domain in January, the Department has not been overwhelmed with complaints of sexual harassment.

“Now that the Sexual Harassment legislation is in effect, it is not that there are many more complaints, what we have is that persons are aware and are coming to us asking for assistance in establishing their workplace policy and requesting more information on the legislation. But as far as complaints are concerned, we have not been overrun with complaints on the matter. But we have gotten one or two.”

Giving the rationale behind the series of labour seminars, the CLO noted that they were devised because it was believed that the level of knowledge and awareness of various aspects of labour law and industrial relations needed to be improved in Barbados.

“We find that many issues can arise simply as a result of lack of information. So therefore these workshops are a proactive way in seeking to put the information out there so that people are better informed to make decisions and to make judgments,” he said. (JH)