Republic of Mauritius- Budget 2019-2020: enhancing workers’ rights

To this end, the existing labour law has been reviewed in order to better protect workers’ rights and the  new Workers’ Rights Bill will be introduced shortly.  The Bill will provide, among others, a new mechanism for computation of gratuity which will recognise the full length of service of a worker, irrespective of the number of employers he has worked for. The proposed Workers’ Rights Bill will also provide for a Wage Guarantee Fund which will guarantee remuneration up to Rs 50,000 to workers who lose their jobs in case of insolvency.

Necessary consultations have been held with the stakeholders and broad consensus has been reached, among representatives of employers, trade unions and government for the introduction of the new mechanism.

The Budget also announces the setting up of a Portable Retirement Gratuity Fund for that purpose and a technical committee will address the modalities for the implementation of the scheme. Necessary measures will be introduced to assist the SME sector.

Moreover, to better tackle the difficulties that some sectors of the economy are experiencing that may bring in their wake sudden loss of jobs, Budget 2019-2020 makes provision for the setting up of a Committee to examine the priority of claims in case of insolvency, in  order to ensure that workers are not unduly penalised.