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Labour Inspection Convention, 1947 (No. 81) - Jamaica (RATIFICATION: 1962)

The Committee notes the information provided by the Government in reply to its previous comments, as well as the Statistical Bulletin of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security for 2003. It draws the Government’s attention to the following points.

1. Functions of the labour inspectorate. With reference to its previous comments, the Committee notes with interest the statistical data on inspection activities relating to conditions of work other than occupational safety and health (Article 3, paragraph 1(a), of the Convention).

2. Notification of employment accidents and occupational diseases. With reference to its previous comments, the Committee notes the Government’s indication that the increase in the number of employment accidents recorded between 1999 and 2000 was due to the arrangements made in 1999 for the National Insurance Scheme to send monthly reports to the labour inspection services of the accidents received by them for compensation. The Committee recalls the value of measures to promote cooperation between the inspection services and other services engaged in similar activities; it requests the Government to indicate whether similar arrangements are also envisaged for cases of occupational disease and to provide information on the measures adopted or envisaged to reduce the most frequent risk factors (Article 5(a) and Article 14). The Committee also notes that, by virtue of section 21(2)(d) of the Factories Act, the manager of the factory or the person having control of the machinery shall, from time to time, report to the Chief Factory Inspector any industrial disease which may occur in the factory. The Committee requests the Government to take the necessary measures to ensure that cases of occupational disease are notified to the labour inspectorate on a regular basis and that any lapse of time between the occurrence of the occupational disease or its diagnosis and the time when the labour inspectorate is notified is such as to allow the inspection services to play their preventive role by undertaking an investigation in the enterprise, where they consider it appropriate (Article 14).

3. Powers of injunction of labour inspectors. The Committee notes the Government’s reference to the adoption in the near future of a new Occupational Safety and Health Act, which should provide labour inspectors with powers of injunction, as envisaged in this Article, in all the workplaces covered by the Convention. The Committee recalls that the Government had already given assurances in 1997 that this Bill would be adopted in the near future. The Committee hopes that the Bill will be adopted without further ado and requests the Government to provide a copy as soon as it has been adopted (Article 13, paragraph 2).

4. Annual labour inspection report (Articles 20 and 21). The Committee notes that the Statistical Bulletin of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security provided by the Government does not contain all the statistical data required by Article 21, as it does not include statistics of violations and penalties imposed (clause (e)) or of occupational diseases (clause (g)). It therefore requests the Government to take the necessary measures to ensure that annual inspection reports contain the information required on all the subjects set out in clauses (a) to (g) of Article 21 of the Convention and that they are transmitted to the ILO within the time limits set out in Article 20.