Aini applauds review of Employment Act

By SHIRLYN BELDEN
THE Employment Act of Papua New Guinea is in its initial stage of review to promote better working standards in the country.
Minister of Labour and Industrial Relations Martin Aini yesterday opened a review convention saying the review was long overdue and needed to be updated to meet the expectation of the growing workforce.
The lack of review has resulted in workers and employees having limited knowledge of their rights and obligations at work because there were no proper policies and regulations in place to govern their welfare in the public and private sectors. 
“The reviewing is timely. The government is focused on the employment issue and aims to implement efficient and effective measures to deliver to achieve the goals and targets of the Millennium Development Goals 2010-15,” Aini said.   
The Act was passed in 1978 and has been in use since.
There are discussions on policy priorities by partners, workers and employers to gauge views and opinions as the starting point of reforming the Act.
The conference participants were urged to take into account in their discussions the rural workforce which has not been considered enough in the Employment Act 1978. 
Representatives from the department had partners from the International Labor Organisation, Office of Justice and Attorney General, Employees Federation, Australian Council of Trade Unions, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Consultative Implementation and Monitoring Council and workers unions in the review conference.
The ILO as the review technical consultant facilitated the convention. Facilitator Caroline Boyd said the convention was also the opportunity for PNG to ratify the four governance conventions important to the functioning of the international labour standard system in PNG.
They are the Labour Inspection Convention, 1947, Labour Inspection (Agriculture) convention,1969 and Tripartite Consultation (International Labour Standards) Convention, 1976. 
PNG had so far ratified only the Employment Policy convention, 1964.
The conference ends today at the Holiday Inn in Port Moresby.