And Pitts, who is also a senator, explained the delays in the Occupational Safety and Health bill. As you heard from the Minister of Labor last night, the senators have several concerns, and he lamented that they waited until the 11th hour to bring them to the ministry.
Today, Pitts clarified the issue.
Sheena Pitts, UDP Chairperson
"It's so unfortunate that even the minister doesn't understand the legislation. It's so unfortunate that the CEO, the labor commissioner and other persons who attended the Senate to hear from us and answer questions from us, you know what they told us? We can't answer that right now, we hear the debate, we hear the concerns, the minister isn't in the country, we can't answer right now. And so when they say the Senate is stalling the bill, I can tell you and I speak for all Senators and the President of the Senate, we are not stalling the bill. They are not prepared to address the myriad of issues all Senators raised up. You know one of the major issues? We signed on to the convention for the elimination of discrimination against women, we have the ILO is it 55 or 87 that says we are to promote women. You know what the OSH said? Domestic workers are not covered under the OSH bill protection. You know who domestic workers are? women. And so most of the members of the Senate, I won't say all because I will be careful, they want to know how is it that you can legislate to exclude an entire population of society from a bill. And there are certain other concerns, Honorable Faber said this bill is heavy with executive and ministerial influence and control. They said it's even but we saw it in real life when the CEO, the labor commissioner and everybody else sat in front of us and told us we can't answer you because the minister is out. They went to waste their time, they went to waste our time. They said we will come back for a second session to address your concerns and the email you referred is what they sent to us saying don't expect another meeting, you won't get that, they're not coming back, based on the debate we had and the exchange we had in committee, they are going to write back. So my friend, who is stalling the bill? Not the senate, not the UDP, it is the very persons who should be pushing it who can't answer because they don't understand the bill."
