The Fiji Trades and Union Congress will not be attending the Employment Relations Advisory Board meeting next week.
Initially, the meeting was supposed to have been held earlier this month.
FTUC General Secretary Felix Anthony has also expressed his disappointment at Government for calling the meeting just 5 days prior to the arrival of the International Labour Organization delegation into the country.
Secretary General of the Fiji Trades Union Congress Felix Anthony claims he was only informed about the Employment Relations Board Meeting 2 nights ago.
Anthony said there hasn’t been any consultations with the Congress prior to setting up a date for the meeting next week.
“We believe the right thing for the government to do is to consult parties and seek their availability for such important meetings. We certainly don’t sit around and wait for government to invite us and we certainly we will not be running to any of those meetings at short notice.” said Anthony
Anthony has other reasons as well not to attend the meeting.
“We immediately sent an email enquiring which ERAB board was going to meet, whether it was going to be the original ERAB board that was agreed to on 25th of March agreement between the tripartite partners or is it going to be Attorney General’s ERAB that is going to meet. we have received no answer in that regard. Therefore we are unable to commit whether we will be able to attend the meeting on 20th.” said Anthony
Congress’s absence from the meeting can have serious implications and reflections on the visiting ILO delegation.
“Just a few days before the mission, that is not the way things work, there is no sufficient time. we are also in the process of making preparations for the mission itself. when are we ever gonna do that? And not only that, we will not be in the position to come up with something concrete that we could jointly tell the mission that we are making progress.” said Anthony
The Congress is hoping to meet the ILO delegation and give their side of the story for not attending the meeting.
The delegation arrives in the country of 25th of this month.