have a year of grace to get their house in order.

After this period either disgruntled employees or a special investigator called an inspector will be able to take any company who breaches the Employment Act 2000 to a newly set up Employment Tribunal.

And according to Minister of Home Affairs Paula Cox, she and her team are already looking for both lawyers and lay people to man these new Employment Tribunals to hear any misdemeanour cases.

Ms Cox said that while she hoped that the Employment Act would actually help to resolve conflict between employers and employees, she was not so naive as to think that the newly formed tribunal would not be used.

She said yesterday: "If it works well we will not have to have people referred to tribunals but I think that certainly in terms of quicker, speedier justice it is a nice medium to have.

"But I think you will note that even within the way the Act is structured that all the intent is to encourage the parties to resolve it, so that even the labour relations officer is almost acting as conciliator/mediator checks whether the aggrieved person has gone through the normal sort of arrangements in their company to exhaust it before they seek any redress from any tribunal.

"So there is the encouragement to get the parties to resolve themselves, then there is that option of using the good offices of the Labour Relations Offices and the tribunal.'' The purpose of the Act is to promote fair treatment of employers and employees, provide minimum standards, establish procedures and notice periods for termination, protect against unfair dismissal and establish an employment tribunal.

The Act came into effect on March 1 and affects all employers and full-time employees -- Bermudians, spouses of Bermudians or work permit holders.

Casual workers, students, under 16s, part-timers under 15 hours a week, temporary or voluntary workers do not come under the act.

And the employers will now have a year to comply with the minimum standards of labour laws set out in the Act.

Ms Cox first started her legal career working in tribunals and expanded on her knowledge with an trip to Trinidad in February.

She and her team went to see their labour tribunal and the director of labour and industrial relations and bought a couple of their case laws for future reference.

She added: "But right now the tribunal has not been constituted and remember, you have a year as a sort of grandfathering period before new companies, certainly, are required to be on board.'' Ms Cox said the tribunal would be made up of people already working in labour relations and in the legal field.

She said: "I think we have that additional aspect of the Employment Act because we did not want it limited just to lawyers and there are also a number -- and I don't want to cherry pick by giving you names -- but there are any number of people on the Permanent Appeals Tribunal and the Essential Industry Settlement Board who are arbitrators and have a tremendous expertise in terms of labour relations.'' Letters will be going out to people who may be interested in sitting on the panel, and notes of interest have been received from some retired professionals.

Grace period: Paula Cox