A single, consolidated framework for Barbados’s labour laws would simplify compliance, reduce workplace disputes and better support small and medium-sized businesses, tourism minister Ian Gooding-Edghill has told Parliament.

Gooding-Edghill, a former president of the Barbados Employers’ Confederation, said that, given changing laws, there was a need for a centralised resource for employers and employees to reference.

“I have, for a long time, argued that we need to bring all of the relevant pieces of labour legislation into one place. There are five pieces of legislation dealing with wages and salaries. You have the Protection of Wages Act, as we are amending today, the Holidays with Pay Act, the Severance Payments Act, the Employment Rights Act, and also the Minimum Wage Act. And then there are other pieces of legislation, the Sexual Harassment Act, for example, the Shops Act, and of course the SHaW (Safety and Health at Work Act)…. But as it relates to perhaps wages, you have at least five pieces of legislation relating to that.”