Devon Evans, Sunday Gleaner Writer

Ocho Rios, St. Ann:

Prime Minister Bruce Golding has given the assurance that the Government will be going ahead with plans to establish flexi-time in Jamaica.

He also said that in addition to establishing flex-time, the Government has decided to move further ahead towards the establishment of labour-market reform in an effort to bring local practices into the 21st century.

Golding said that he has already held talks with leaders of the country's trade unions and representatives of the employers' groups, and had informed them that the work, which had started in 1994 by a committee headed by Professor George Eaton to look at labour-market reform, would be revisited.

"We are going to bring all the parties together and to say 'Now look. There are some things that we were accustomed to before that have no place in today's endeavours, not if we hope to be in the race'," the Prime Minister explained.