the hundreds of worker complaints it receives each year.

The Hon. Irving Pearman, the Minister responsible for labour and immigration matters, said he had been working on the code for more than a year.

On Wednesday he announced it was nearing completion in the House of Assembly on Wednesday in response to concerns by Independent MP Mr. Stuart Hayward for the rights of domestics.

With the code of employer/employee ethics and rights, both Bermudian and contract workers will know what terms they are working under, what is expected of them and what action they can take if they feel they their rights have been infringed on, Mr. Pearman said.

"It will be a set of basic principles for employment that should improve employer-employee relations by creating a better understanding of them,'' he said. "A lot of people just don't know what is expected of them on the job. A lot of companies do not even have policy guides.'' Mr. Pearman said that unlike most other countries Bermuda did not yet have such as code.

The need had not arisen, he explained. "We've always enjoyed reasonably good relations between worker and employer,'' he said. "But now with the pressures and stress brought on by the recession, there are problems.'' Mr. Pearman said his Ministry had been kept "extremely busy'' dealing with some 700-plus worker complaints last year.