THE EDITOR, Sir:
KINDLY ALLOW me the opportunity to speak on behalf of the "silent majority" within the ranks of the Christian Church on the proposed introduction of the flexi-week.
Let me state categorically that many within the Church community have been bitterly opposed to the concept of a flexi-week This position was well articulated by those who represented our interest to the Government as a violation of moral, spiritual and family considerations.
I have spoken on this subject to persons outside the Church who opposed the introduction of the flexi-week as being alien to the Jamaican psyche and also on the ground that such a move would seriously erode the already fragile family arrangements. The view was expressed that many absentee "baby fathers" visited their siblings on a Sunday. Sunday was viewed by many as a "Family Day" when families ate together, bonded and engaged in recreational activities.
I also sensed from those discussions that many Jamaicans were of the view that the introduction of the flexi-week was a smoke screen or as a peripheral issue to hide the failure of the Ministry of Labour in halting the slide of redundancies, factory closures, and the mushrooming unemployment rate. We, in the Church, have counselled and consoled families in crisis and in addressing whole communities in crisis management and dispute resolution. This is certainly no time for the Government, to polarise and antagonise a "key partner" in social development and in stabilising whole communities. As a Church community, we have appeared to be silent in the public media. But as a Church our primary focus has not been with a microphone, but with the suffering lot of the Jamaican people.
The Church more than other NGO or agency in the society, knows the pulse of the masses in the country, because we clothe, feed, medicate and empower persons through skills- training and job-creation.
We implore the Government to re-think this flexi-week proposal, because no government can survive the arsenal of a Church which has re-directed its otherwise productive energies to fight on issues. I wish to remind our political leaders that we are older and wiser now, and will not succumb to divide-and-rule strategies.
I speak as a voice in this sleeping giant, that we would prefer our policy-makers to re-think their position or put this matter and others of constitutional reform, or republican status on the ballot of a national referendum and let the voice of the people be heard, but we will not bow to the flexi-week proposal.
I am, etc.,
REV. DR. ORVILLE NEIL
7 Oxford Road
Kingston 5
