The Ministry of Labour (MoL) has operated either as one of two or more departments within a Ministry or a Ministry on its own since the establishment of the Ministerial System of Government; Section 6 (1) of Part II of the Employment Act No. 14/99 provides for the establishment of a Department of Labour which shall be under the authority of a Minister.
The Ministry of Labour seeks to promote a climate for good industrial labour relations. The broad mandate of the Ministry is to regulate the labour market through policies and programmes in consultation with social partners which are aimed to:
Improve efficiency and productivity;
Create decent work;
Promote labour standards and fundamental rights at work;
Ensure sound labour relations;
Eliminate inequality and discrimination in the workplace;
Enhance Occupational Health and Safety awareness and compliance at workplaces;
Give value to social dialogue in the formulation of sound and responsive policies;
Manage the migrant programmes (Work Permit and Seasonal Migrant)
At present, there are two Divisions - Administration and Labour.
The functions of the Labour Division are outlined in Section 8(1) of the Employment Act of 1999 which vests in the Labour Commissioner the responsibility for the enforcement of the provisions of the Act. The Units under his supervision comprise of Policy and Labour Relations; Standards and Labour Market Information; Employment, Labour and Safety Inspectorate.
The MoL is expected to provide the following functions:
Mediation/Conciliation;
Advisory services;
Promote Tripartism;
Inspections and Labour Standards;
Certification of Trade Unions and Employers organisations;
Reporting obligations to the Parliament;
Advising the Minister on all labour matters and on measures to improve industrial relations generally.
Modifications to the organisational structure were necessary to implement Attrition Policy, and to fine-tune responsibilities and objectives, while maintaining the fit between organisational strategy, resources, structure and processes. Internal and external opportunities would create a culture which is conducive to, and supportive of innovation and change.
The Ministry has included the recommendations of the Final Report on a Review of the Functions and Organisational Structure of the Department of Labour of Grenada. As a consequence, the administrative functions is expected to be in line with the ILO Standards contained in ILO Convention No 150 and Recommendation 158 on Labour Administration.
The essential elements of the recommendations are:
Labour Standards;
Industrial Relations/Labour Relations;
Labour and Safety Inspections;
Manpower and Employment Services;
Research and Labour Statistics;
Regional and International Affairs.
Equally important are the nine (9) main interventions and thirty four (34) recommendations contained in the Report on the Strengthening of Personnel expenditures and the Action Plan for the Ministry of Labour.
The main strategic interventions are:
Strategic Planning;
Human Resource Planning, Job analysis;
Competency Focus;
Performance Management;
Succession Planning;
Training and Development;
Transformational Human resource Management;
Change Management;
Records Management.
These changes will allow the Ministry to perform effectively and optimise the consistencies between its strategies, structure, staff capacity and processes. An important underlying factor to the success of these changes depends on the multiplicity of positive attitude to ensure that the efforts of the Ministry are well coordinated, directed and guided towards the achievement of goals.
The total established staff is sixteen with three vacancies. There are three Unestablished/contract Workers.
The recommended management system for the support of effective labour administration services, well coordinated and managed under the supervision of senior management team comprises the following persons:
o Minister
o Permanent Secretary
o Labour Commissioner
o Deputy Labour Commissioner
o Administrative Officer
Other senior officers may partipate in Ad Hoc committees on specific subject areas.
The Ministry has two members of staff on Contract with the responsibility for the processing of Work Permit applications for Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens.