The territory's Wrongful Discharge Act, which is now in legal limbo, will be the subject of a Senate committee hearing Monday night.
The goal, Sen. Roosevelt David said in Sunday's V.I. Independent, is to forge a compromise between business and labor so legislators can draft a new, workable law.
David, chairman of the Labor and Veterans Affairs Committee, has invited business and labor leaders to testify.
"I hope to get some balance," he told the Independent. "I understand that we can't have employees out there unprotected but I don't think the Legislature should legislate business out of operation."
The territory's Wrongful Discharge Act is on shaky legal grounds now, thanks to a recent ruling by District Court Judge Thomas K. Moore that said portions of it were in conflict with federal labor laws and therefore unenforceable. However, attorneys differ on what this means in terms of the entire statute.
Business people have long complained about the law, saying it makes it too difficult for them to fire workers who aren't performing well. And because it so strongly protects workers' rights, it discourages them from hiring young, inexperienced people or local people for seasonal jobs.
Richard Doumeng, president of the St. Thomas-St. John Hotel Association, told the Independent that it is a "fallacy that employers hire to fire."
"Employees have rights, but we just need to look at making the contract between the job-provider and the job-taker more of a two-way street," he is quoted as saying. "But we're so emotional about the issue, we don't look at the simple ways both employers and employees could benefit."
