Labour Department Probes Retrenchment Reports
By Rosli Abidin Yahya

Bandar Seri Begawan - The Labour Department is still investigating reports alleging cases of terminations in at least two companies in the sultanate recently.

Officials said that unless the dismissed personnel lodged reports with them, they would not be aware of employees in the private sector being made redundant.

The department hoped that employees of the private sector, who were dismissed, could inform its officials so they could initiate investigations on cases of mass redundancies.

They said none of the 50 employees being terminated by a hotel reported the matter to the department.

Earlier, Borneo Bulletin reported that one hotel in Brunei Darussalam had been retrenching staff since last month.

The hotel personnel are now worried as they alleged that the hotel is planning to retrench more than 100 employees, including locals in the near future.

"The employees were terminated because of disciplinary action but it should be called retrenchment because the dismissed staff lost their jobs at about the same time," they said.

They alleged the reason for the dismissal was due to low occupancy resulting from the Iraq war and the global outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

"We are not aware of such termination initiated by the hotel. However, only a few of the 20 security personnel made redundant recently had lodged reports with us," the labour officials said.

"The matter is still being investigated by the department," officials said.

Observers said employees here are actually protected by the Labour laws. Administered and enforced by the Labour Department, these laws were enacted to ensure satisfactory standard of employment and proper action could be taken for the protection of workers.

They said the agency is to reconcile trade disputes or disagreement between employer and employees, promote joint consultative and collective bargaining in the industry, ensure the settlements of workmen's compensation claims, carry out regular inspections to places of employment and accommodation and ensure priorities are given to local job seekers.

The laws administered by the Labour Department include Labour Act 1954 (amended in 1984), Workmen's Compensation Act, 1957 (amended in 1984), Trade Union Act, 1961 (Amended in 1972), Trade Dispute, 1961, Employment Information Act, 1974 ( Amended in 1978 ), Labour regulations (Maternity Benefits), 1955, Labour Statement (Child Employment Restriction), 1955, Labour Statement (Special Workplaces), 1956, Labour regulations (Public Holidays), 1956, Labour regulations (Domestic Helpers), 1971, Labour regulations (General Contracts), 1971, Labour regulations (Foreign Employment Licence), 1971, Labour regulations (Limitation Of Duties & Powers), 1971 and Labour regulations (Salary Payment in Cheque), 1975. (Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin)

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