The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I again find myself pressed to share my thoughts on yet another both stressful and poorly thought out issue presented by those who would again wish to govern us.

The recent move to increase the redundancy and severance pay of workers is apparently thought out by persons who are politically based rather than economically trained.

At the height of my business with 38 employees I had about $150,000 reserve for separating from my employees honourably. There are other ways. Build up a list of warnings and fire them. Lord knows employees do enough foolishness and often it is a matter of the devil you know rather than the one you don’t know.

The other way is to fold up the business with a few tricks to siphon off the assets first and then leave all high and dry. I’m sure many people have done these things.

I have never resorted to such tactics, but gradually shrunk the company and helped the guys to move on. Often to better things. A few took advantage of me by using the sympathies of the Labour Board and free legal pressure from the Eugene Dupuch law school. But I made it through having set aside a portion of our efforts into that reserve.

Every time the government took steps to improve the lot of the labourer by increasing how much severance and such they had coming I was able to adjust my reserve without too much ado.

If I was at my prime and facing what Government is now trying to do now I would have to recapitalise my company in order to be on a sound footing. This means I would have had to take my personal money and put it into a reserve to satisfy good business compliance with the new regulations.

Such a call on all businesses without the employees having to lift one finger to satisfy the reserve amounts to the Government taking my money and giving it to my employees for nothing. It would be different if there was a more gradual implementation to permit the growth of the company to fill the gap. Poor governance. Essentially robbery of the capital class to satisfy a ruling class that needs the support of voters.

SIMON RODEHN

Nassau

March 24, 2017