Employment law has been an area of law ripe with uncertainty for decades within The Bahamas. In 2001 the Employment Act (the “EA”) was passed and came into force on 1st January, 2002. One of the objectives of the EA was to provide, to a certain extent, a codification of the law relating to employment so as to clearly define the relationship between employer and employee in regard to standard hours of work, vacation, dismissal and wages. However, section 4 of the EA contains a vital caveat which effectively preserved greater rights to which an employee may have been entitled by contract or under any other law, custom or practice, in circumstances where there existed a conflict between such rights and the EA. However , the EA has, thus far, failed to reduce the amount of employment litigation as may have been initially envisioned.
