Bala wants unions to be part of meetings however FTUC says meetings with govt are useless

Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, Parveen Bala says the government strongly believes in consultation and cooperation but it is unfortunate to note that workers’ representatives are not attending public consultations to provide a voice for the workers in Fiji which they preach they represent.

While making his ministerial statement, Bala says unions again failed to attend the formal tripartite board meeting last year.

Bala says he is renewing his call and inviting trade unionists to come to the meetings.

Meanwhile Fiji Trades Union Congress National Secretary, Felix Anthony says the FTUC has decided not to attend these meetings as they are useless and there are no outcomes of these meetings.

Anthony says until such time that they can see the government is sincere, there is no point in attending these meetings.

He says the government had made some commitments where the unions had signed two agreements with the government, International Labour Organisation and the Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation on a joint implementation report.

Anthony says despite having numerous meetings, government has not acted on those meetings that they had.

He claims the government is just using their attendance at these meetings to showcase to the ILO that the government is consulting.  

We have sent questions to Parveen Bala on the issues highlighted by Anthony.