Kristen Gyles | What of the flexi workweek law?

Earlier this year, I watched with interest a news item shared on a TVJ news broadcast where citizens living on Paddington Terrace, and in surrounding communities in St. Andrew, complained of construction work being done on Sundays, disrupting their well-deserved Sunday peace. The mayor of Kingston addressed the matter by reminding the nation that, by law, construction work was not to be taking place on Sundays. I was baffled. In 2021, there is still a specific day which, supposedly by law, deserves its own respect and reverence.

People reserve the right to think whatever they want about specific days of the week and what they should and should not do on those days. But why is the law of the country disallowing citizens from working on any specific day of the week? Furthermore, this conversation seems awfully familiar, almost as though we’ve had it already… .

Just a few years ago, in 2014, what many refer to as the ‘flexi workweek’ act was passed … into an abyss. The law was to allow employers to develop unique arrangements with their employees regarding workdays and hours. Under the act, an employee’s workweek consisting of 40 hours should be flexible and should not need to reflect the traditional ‘9-5’ hours from Monday to Friday. I would assume this law did not apply to the construction workers on Paddington Terrace.

NOT AWARE OF SUCH AN ACT

Supposedly a part of the Jamaica Labour Market Reform process which was started in 1994, the Flexible Work Arrangements Act is a perfect example of why laws will have no impact without a corresponding culture change. In general, we have a rather archaic view of work and workdays. Up until this bill was passed, the Shops and Offices Act saw businesses closing early on some weekdays and being closed altogether on Sundays. Sunday gaming and betting was also illegal. The Flexible Work Arrangements Act had swooped in to save the day from a rather antiquated culture which desperately needed to go. However, several years later, construction workers are still expected not to be working on Sundays and holidays are still not celebrated on Sundays.

In reality, many employees are not even aware of such an act, and still work under the impression that they must be paid overtime for working on weekends. The recent push for employers to adopt work-from-home policies where possible presented a good opportunity for the Government to remind the country of this law which has only been gathering dust on Parliament’s bottom shelf, beneath the stack of all the other passed-but-forgotten laws.

Where did the culture come from, though? During the church’s glory days of almost universal power, it was the norm for secular and religious lines to get crossed, and it was easy for Sunday – the day of Christ’s ascension, to assume an elevated position, even in law.

Now that we have outlined what is and what has been, where to from here?

Firstly, we could actually treat the flexi workweek act as though it exists and educate the public about its existence. However, if we are going to go that route, we will have to pop the bubble that envelops Sunday and get rid of all the traditional and legal mumbo jumbo that makes it illegal to do ordinary work on Sundays. If we decide on having a flexible workweek, let’s actually have a flexible workweek where workers are not chastised for working on some days of the week. Under this regime, naturally, our holidays would be celebrated on whichever days they fall, but workers would also have much more flexible work arrangements, which may just see them working on weekends anyway.

Our second option is to treat the weekend like the weekend and assume a workweek that runs from Monday to Friday. If so, holidays should not be celebrated on the weekend – either on Saturday or on Sunday.

Interestingly, although the United States has a very religious-guided constitution, it seems to grasp quite well the concept of ‘weekend’ without creating any semblance of a differentiation or prejudice between Saturday and Sunday. In the US, if a public holiday falls on a Saturday, it is celebrated the Friday before, while if the holiday falls on Sunday, it is celebrated the Monday after. Clever and smart.

Laws should not exist simply for ceremony and formality’s sake. So, let me ask, has the workweek lost its flexibility?

Kristen Gyles is a graduate student at The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. Email feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com.