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Min­is­ter of Labour and Small and Mi­cro En­ter­pris­es Leroy Bap­tiste has an­nounced sweep­ing amend­ments to the Ma­ter­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Act and the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act (RS­BA), cit­ing long-stand­ing gaps and the ur­gent need to bet­ter pro­tect work­ers fac­ing job loss.

Speak­ing at a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress me­dia con­fer­ence at the par­ty’s Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters yes­ter­day, Bap­tiste said the amend­ments have al­ready been ap­proved by Cab­i­net and are now be­fore the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for fi­nal le­gal vet­ting ahead of par­lia­men­tary con­sid­er­a­tion.

He un­der­scored the ur­gency of re­form­ing the RS­BA in the wake of the an­nounce­ment on Fri­day of the pend­ing clo­sure of the News­day news­pa­per, which has placed work­ers at risk of re­trench­ment.