Get on with OSHA

When Labour Minister Danny Montano last year said that he would be taking the Act back to the drawing board, we accepted this. If there were bugs to be ironed out, despite the Act having been passed by the Parliament, we felt it best, given the importance of the OSHA, that any problems be fixed before the Act was returned to Parliament. A balance had to be struck between the need for worker safety and legislation which would force many businesses to increase their operating expenses.

Naturally, the trade unions were unhappy about this delay, and their unhappiness was exacerbated by a series of fatal industrial accidents, ranging from falls to explosions, which they argue would have been prevented had the OSHA been in force. The trade unions have even accused the Government of deliberately stifling the OSHA in order to please business interests. But this kind of rhetoric could initially be dismissed as standard fare in relations between trade unions and government. After so many months, however, it seems justifiable to ask exactly what is causing this delay. Is it mere incompetence on the part of Government legislators or are there indeed ulterior motives at work?

Senator Montano’s own reticence has led to these questions. Mr Montano claims that the Act, as presently drafted, has significant deficiencies. But he has not informed the public or the trade union leaders exactly what these deficiencies are. Such a lack of transparency naturally creates suspicion — more so as Mr Montano is a Minister with absolutely no track record in labour relations. If it is that the problems cannot be solved by whoever is working on the Act, then the Government should bring in more competent persons. But, whether this is the case or not, it is high time that Mr Montano gives the public a complete explanation about what the Government does not like in the OSHA and why there has been so long a delay in fixing the supposed deficiencies in it.

This delay has now led to the trade union leaders querying why the Government doesn’t bring the legislation to Parliament and amend it after. This is not the proper way of doing things, of course, but it is the Government’s own predilection for modifying legislation it doesn’t like, from the Freedom of Information Act to the Judicial Review Amendment Bill, which has allowed the trade unions to make this suggestion. Indeed, the trade unionists have pointed out, correctly, that the Government is overstepping its authority by refusing to implement an Act duly passed by Parliament. The issue has now become important enough for Prime Minister Patrick Manning to have met with trade union representatives on Wednesday to discuss the OSHA — but the fact that the unions protested in front of Whitehall yesterday suggests that those talks did not provide the reassurance they were seeking.

If this situation continues for long again, the Government’s reputation for incompetence will become even more solidified. The OSHA must be revamped and implemented within the next few weeks at least. Any longer time frame is entirely unacceptable.