The Gov­ern­ment plans sweep­ing changes to the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act to pre­vent em­ploy­ers from avoid­ing sev­er­ance pay­ments through in­sol­ven­cy, tem­po­rary lay­offs or stag­gered job cuts, Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste an­nounced at a press con­fer­ence at UNC head­quar­ters on Sun­day.

Min­is­ter Bap­tiste said the amend­ments to the 1985 leg­is­la­tion would re­de­fine re­dun­dan­cy, mod­ernise com­pen­sa­tion rates and es­tab­lish a guar­an­teed Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fit Fund, while en­sur­ing all re­trenched work­ers qual­i­fy for ben­e­fits, re­gard­less of com­pa­ny size or the method used to ter­mi­nate em­ploy­ment.

He said the ex­ist­ing law had been ex­ploit­ed to the dis­ad­van­tage of work­ers, leav­ing many with­out re­course when com­pa­nies closed, claimed in­sol­ven­cy or placed em­ploy­ees on pro­longed “tem­po­rary” lay­off.