Labour and the CSME

By Mr Joseph Goddard

“I think that the present vision of CSME lacks any people dimension. It lacks a sense of a culture of history and motivation. It is just like about buying and selling goods and we waste a lot of our powers in just getting and spending. We are not focusing on what really is the ultimate goal of the process.”  

–Professor Clive Thomas Daily Nation (Barbados) Tuesday October 4, 2005

Introduction

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME) integration process is premised on three essential pillars: economic integration, particularly through a common market and common trade policies; functional co-operation which entails the pooling of resources and the sharing of services, mostly so in the areas of security, human and social development and environmental protection; and coordination of foreign policies, that is, presenting a unified position in our relations with countries external to the group.                                                          

Functional co-operation and the sharing of common services, of necessity, is a broad and somewhat amorphous area which, in the case of the CSME, involves among other elements, education and training, health, the environment and sustainable development, regional security, disaster preparedness and mitigation, human resource especially gender development, culture, youth, sports, transportation and information, communication. This article concentrates on the functional cooperation component (and to a lesser extent to the sharing of common services) of the integration process focusing almost exclusively on issues of economic growth, social development and of course, narrower human resource and labour matters. Let me hasten to add, lest persons are mistaken about the ability of organised labour to participate meaningfully and productively in discussions on matters other than labour and industrial relations, that the reason for restricting the contents of this article to these couple of areas is solely because they alone will take up all the space allotted by the requesting authority.

 The invitation is most timely, as it affords me the rare opportunity to set out in an additional and impressive forum some pressing concerns and fears of the labour movement and its constituents with whom I have had the deep honour to be closely associated and to serve in leadership positions for over three decades. In addition, I am afforded the opportunity to set down insights and proffer, for the careful consideration of a wide distinguished readership of this influential and important publication, possible solutions to some of the Region’s myriad challenges. This is achieved by sharing portions of a document recently developed by the regional labour movement titled Labour’s Platform for the Caribbean. Like the Platform, this article is not only critical of our political leadership, but contains a number of observations and, more importantly, offers  proposals and suggestions which constitute organised labour’s alternative socio-economic model of development. The people of the Region are understanding and tolerant; however empathy, tolerance and time are quickly dissipating.

Why Integrate

There are sound reasons for the Region integrating. A few of them that readily come to mind are: to create a critical mass for pooling resources and expanding various markets (e.g. trade, and labour markets); to gain leverage, for example, in relation to diplomacy and foreign economic policies; to fulfil an innate urge of the people to construct a more meaningful nation; and, to perpetuate a long legacy of regional travel, trade and interaction. Article 6 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (RTC) more elaborately sets out the objectives of the Community: improved standards of living and work; full employment of labour and other factors of production; accelerated, co-ordinated and sustained economic development and convergence; expansion of trade and economic relations with third States; enhanced levels of international competitiveness; organisation for increased production and productivity; the achievement of a greater measure of economic leverage and effectiveness of Member States in dealing with third States, groups of States, etc; enhanced co-ordination of the foreign and foreign economic policies of Member States; and enhanced functional co-operation… 

For more than a century the people of the Region have aspired to be a prosperous people, enjoying good health, sound education and comfortable housing. For approximately three generations the leaders of organized labour, personifying the ordinary Caribbean man and woman, have not only given voice to these needs, expectations and hopes but have been the architects of strategies for their fulfilment. Dutifully they fashioned a composite social, economic and political agenda which crystallized and faithfully reflected the needs, expectations and aspirations of the people. Out of this agenda decisions were made at the inaugural meeting of the Region’s industrial labour leaders in Georgetown, in the then British Guiana, in October 1926. A similarly inspired meeting of the heads of the Region’s civil service associations was held in January 1944, in Kingston, Jamaica.

Failure to Deliver and To Progress

After all these years, many creative, relevant, feasible and important recommendations made by the Independent West Indian Commission established by the Heads of Government at the 1989 conference as well as other reports and studies have been accepted but remain un-implemented, partially implemented, or indifferently implemented. Declarations solemnly pledged at the highest levels remain un-honoured. Crucial sections of work programmes remain outstanding. After all this time and tomes of material – reports, studies, resolutions, declarations and speeches – the pace of implementation, even when there is agreement, leaves much to be desired.

Sir Shridath Ramphal, chairman of the West Indian Commission, in 1991, impassionately averred to the Twelfth Meeting of the Heads of Government: The point is we [members of the Commission] have reached out to the people and they have come forward to meet us in large numbers and with unreluctant voices; but, more important, with hearts open to West Indian unity…West Indians want to improve the quality of their regional lives, by which they mean both the quality of life within their separate territories and the quality of their lives as West Indians living in their wider regional community.¹

The Commissioners subsequently asserted that the Achilles heel of the integration efforts was the lack of effective and timely implementation of decisions and went on to recommend, inter alia, the establishment of a number of mechanisms aimed at, hopefully, remedying the related ills of non-implementation and tardy implementation. The Heads also confirmed an earlier decision taken by them in 1987, to establish an Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians (ACCP), an institution aimed at bringing “our integration movement …closer to the people …where regional issues would be discussed.”² While the inaugural session of this potentially useful deliberative and advisory body was held in 1996 in Barbados it has been able to convene only a couple more sessions (1999 in Grenada and 2000 in Belize). This obvious state of inertia among some regional institutions is one of the principal causes of disillusionment and despair among Caribbean nationals.

In 1993, the West Indian Commission was constrained to report that Caribbean people were bitter about the lack of meaningful progress. In 2005 Professor C.Y Thomas made the unflattering observation that: “Given the critical juncture at which the Region finds itself, it is not altogether surprising that harsh comments and severe doubts have been expressed in many quarters about the readiness, fitness, seriousness, and even purposefulness of the contemporary leadership elites in moving the Caribbean forward.”^3`        

The Single Market was inaugurated eventually in January 2006, but with only three members -Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago – a disappointing development that was to be paralleled subsequently when the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) was inaugurated.

In 2007, one of the questions in relation to implementation of the CSME has to be: What is the collective level of disappointment, cynicism, resentment and bitterness being shouldered by the people of the Region? What is the extent of alienation being felt by them??

Growth, Development and People

The progress which has been made towards fulfilling the goals of integration, with which the vast majority of the people identify, in many respects has been painfully slow at best and at worst profoundly disappointing. Whereas, given the limited resources at their disposal and the undeveloped state of information and communication technology, one can readily appreciate and empathise with the likes of Errol Barrow of Barbados, Vere Bird Sr. of Antigua and Barbuda, Eric Williams of Trinidad and Tobago, Forbes Burnham of Guyana, Robert Bradshaw of St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla and the Manleys of Jamaica, the same compassion and tolerance should not be extended to the existing crop of political leaders…except to the present Barbadian leader.

Development is about improving the well-being of citizens; it is about enhancing the quality of their lives. Development entails eradicating poverty, promoting human dignity and equality, and achieving peace, democracy and environmental sustainability. It’s about the universal provision of quality health care, quality education, decent housing and decent employment on a sustained basis. This was synonymously stated by Demas: “ Ultimately all economic development, whether of individual countries or groups of countries (irrespective of size), must be inward looking in the sense of being self-reliant, internationally competitive, flexible, resilient and quick to innovate or to shift resources to other activities.” ⁴

Integration is a means, a vehicle, for pooling resources with a view to speeding up the pace of economic, social, political and cultural development. Our leaders have correctly opted for regional integration as the principal instrument for realising the twin objectives of economic growth and social development. For many years the Region’s labour movement led by the Caribbean Congress of Labour has consistently defended the lack of satisfactory progress with the integration process; the labour leadership has suffered with great tolerance the inaction and indecisiveness of our political leaders; the labour leadership has rationalised bravely in public, the enigmatic decisions and actions of our decision-makers; and in the face of all this, the labour movement has faithfully and ardently proclaimed and promoted the goals and potential of integration. During all this, the constituents of the labour movement – the ordinary Caribbean man and woman – continue to be deprived of the fulfilment of their needs and denied the realisation of their legitimate expectations and goals. Since the departure of the political patriarchs mentioned above – the ‘fathers’ of our respective nation – with rare exceptions, sustained and fruitful effort has not been made to conceptualise and conceive imaginative policies to harness the resources of the Region. In brief, the rate and sustainability of economic growth potential has not been realised. Without the maximum exploitation of our resources and the achievement of an acceptable rate of economic growth, the desired level of social development and quality of life aspired to by CARICOM citizens and which the Region is capable of producing, will be illusionary.

The Region is not a poverty-stricken one. As far back as 1990 William Demas was good enough to set out for us in an Occasional Paper,⁵ prepared for the West Indian Commission, a fairly comprehensive  but admittedly incomplete list of regional achievers in selected fields, including: cricket, writing novels, short stories and plays, stage acting, poetry, literary criticism,  creative dancing, painting, sculpture, calypso, steel pan, reggae, history, social sciences, public service economics, private sector economics, diplomacy,  in international organisations, media, in the world of ideas, law and medicine, science and technology, business. Demas went on, in the said essay, to assert that the Region has available large amounts of useable land and good endowment of natural resources for export agriculture: for food, livestock and fisheries, products for local and regional markets; for timber; for minerals such as gold, diamonds, bauxite, oil and natural gas; as well as sea, sun and sand; flora, fauna and water; shrimp and fish and last but not least being well located geographically. In 1997, Demas advised and encouraged us that “For the West Indies all is not doom and gloom. We should look at the present world situation positively and become proactive rather than reactive.”⁶

Similar conclusions were drawn by C.Y Thomas: “Many persons are not aware…that although the Region comprises a significant number of small and mini-states, taken as a whole it is blessed with a rich and diversified resource endowment, this is impressive by global standards. Examples of the Region’s outstanding natural resource endowments include:

• More bio-diversity per 1000 km2 than any other region worldwide
• Abundant potential energy resources: natural gas, solar energy, hydro-power, not to mention the potential for renewable energy from plant sources
• Forest and wood products
• Bauxite and other minerals
• Good agricultural soils
• Precious metals…
• Excellent recreational climate (sea, sun and sand) which is vital in an age when travel tourism has become the world’s largest and fastest growing economic sector
• …excellent geographical location in terms of existing and likely networks of global communications and transport. ⁷

Professor Clive Thomas, like Demas, also cited our distinguished human and institutional resources to which were added “considerable inventiveness and innovativeness.” All the above sentiments are widely shared across the Region and beyond.

It has been widely accepted (See Benn, Demas, Thomas, et al) that the Community possesses not only sufficient resources but an abundance of resources – particularly human and natural – to succeed as a Caribbean nation. And just as important, there is irrefutable evidence of a keen desire among Caribbean nationals to construct a model nation. What is needed are: firstly, the will by our political leaders to disabuse themselves of an obsessive personal concern about the political survival of themselves and their parties; secondly, the permanent jettisoning of the “economic insularity” that has taken some of us hostage and prevents us from taking decisive steps, for instance, to develop the empty spaces in Guyana, Belize, Suriname, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Trinidad, or to have a truly regional airline or to resuscitate an efficient maritime transportation system; and thirdly, the people need to be taken into the confidence of the decision-makers. Lip service is paid time and time again to the quality and critical nature of our human resources but consistently civil society organisations are shut out from the decision-making process. Similarly, we hear a great deal about transparency and good governance but those in whose names important decisions are made on a daily basis are not only debarred from the various forums, but there is hardly ever any meaningful reporting done, hence they are not privy to implications of those same decisions made in the collective name of the people.

Our leaders continue to fail the people without just and sufficient cause. The impression is at times given that they are being asked to make bricks without straw; that the Region is without resources and they are helpless. This is far from the case. People’s welfare, wellbeing and progress depend to a large extent on a judicious mixture of economic and social policies and programmes. Notwithstanding the heartfelt pleas coming from many sources across our region and further afield for greater transparency, urgency and ingenuity in the management of the affairs of Member States, the state of affairs – notably in the areas of the economy, health and education/training, housing, agriculture, transportation, freedom of movement, foreign policy, finance – remain, with few exceptions, unacceptable. In terms of the Caribbean it could be convincingly argued that its human resources are the most critical asset not only because “people, rather than institutions, are the creators and producers of development” but because of our comparatively limited other natural resources. In any case, the most sophisticated technology or piece of equipment is of little use in itself without the involvement of the human factor, hence the Region’s labour movement is convinced that there can be, there must be, a feasible alternative – a realistic economic, social, political and cultural development agenda – which places people at its core.

Economic Objectives, Sustainable Development and Full Employment

An entire range of factors impact on the functioning of our institutions and enterprises as well as on the manner in which capital and labour are regarded and treated. And there is more than a suspicion with respect to the esteem and less-than-fair and equitable treatment of ordinary people – the working class. These factors include, but are not limited to: health, education and training, quality of employment, income distribution and taxation, transparency and governance, social provision, competitiveness, reward and recognition, food and nutrition. In turn, these same factors have a direct bearing, whether positive or negative, on productivity. A range of commentators suggest that, in general, there has been economic development in the Region based on universally accepted indicators but that this development has been “very unevenly distributed, both across and within countries. Also, many gaps and deficits remain, and some of these are huge.”⁸      

It has been posited also that solidarity is the noblest human sentiment in the struggle against inequality, because it opens doors to new opportunities for education, employment and the fight against poverty and hunger. Solidarity, rather than cowardice and insular parochial economic policies rooted in insecurity, is the antidote for the Community’s economic and social ills. Accordingly, this writer is confident that Organised Labour is persuaded that in order to successfully address the vincible problems being faced by the people of the Caribbean, a novel approach to national development, and by extension, to the management of the regional economy, is needed; one that promotes sustainable development and places decent jobs and full employment at its heart, while acknowledging a pivotal role for the state.

The Region’s labour movement and its civil society partners have been asserting that a platform of people-centred development policies, having at their core the twin goals of decent jobs and full employment, should meet the conditions set out below. Prime Minister Owen Arthur has been one of the few prominent political leaders to have acknowledged publicly the decency of  and commonsense in embracing and promoting a process which seeks to decrease the decent work deficit (i.e. an absence of sufficient employment opportunities, inadequate social protection, the denial of rights at work and shortcomings in social dialogue) wherever it exists, and which maintains a commitment to the respect for workers’ rights and the fair treatment of workers without regard for nationality, socio-economic background or race.” ⁹  

Our governments, after careful review of the measures outlined in the Revised Treaty (e.g. see Part Two Articles 56- 65) which are yet to be fleshed-out, and after consulting with the social partners and agreeing on priority development policy areas, must implement, in a timely manner, appropriate programmes which have as their goal the attainment of enduring improvement in the quality and number of jobs for Caribbean nationals, and as a consequence, enhancement in the quality of the people’s lives. Some economic drivers have already been identified (e.g. energy, agriculture, sustainable tourism, export services, and innovation).¹⁰    

As correctly pointed out, up-stream and downstream industries would be expected to spring from most, if not all of these drivers. There are also niche markets that can be developed or further developed as appropriate (e.g. rum, Sea Island cotton, sugar, shrimps and prize fish, nutmeg, arrowroot, black belly lamb, hardwoods).

The main proposals contained in the Jagdeo Initiative,¹¹ within the context of theCARICOM Agricultural Policy (which replaces the Regional Transformation Plan),resonate with Organised Labourin theCaribbean, identifying as it has, principles that need to be enunciated, feasible economic possibilities for agriculture, forestry, fishery and complimentary industries, as well as promoting food security and the desirability of strengthening agriculture on a whole for sustainable growth and development.

Every effort should be made to critically review and incorporate into the CARICOM Agricultural Policy, the best aspects of the Summit of the Americas AgroPlan 2015, as well as the Strategic Plan for Agro-Tourism recently developed by the Barbados office of the Inter–American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA) with a view to improving and implementing it without further unwarranted procrastination.

(a) Investment and Economic Priorities

The provisions of Article 70 of the Revised Treaty that seeks to have proposals formulated and measures adopted to promote a sound economic environment, as well as economic development in Member States, must be supported at least in principle; so too the observations and recommendations at Sub-sections 1.3 and Sections III & IV of the Girvan Report.¹² However a responsible and vigilant labour movement would prefer to have seen at the same time, specific provisions to deal with the fair and transparent distribution of the value added/wealth created. In due course, the Caribbean Congress of Labour, along with its partners, will be in the vanguard promoting, drafting and submitting a framework for the transparent calculation and equitable distribution of the gains accruing from value added and/or wealth created by workers in the enterprise. 

Caribbean nationals must extract from Governments a policy of insisting that foreign investors respect labour rights, obey national (and regional) laws and submit to the authority of our judicial systems. In these circumstances action needs to be taken on the proposed Declaration of Labour & Industrial Relations Principles, the Charter of Civil Society, and related proposals put out by the Community, with the view to imbuing them with legal force. Governments must also seek the reinvestment of profits, so as to enhance genuine economic development, penalising “social dumping” and capital flight. 

• Fiscal Policy and Progressive Taxation

It is accepted that fiscal policies (in which progressive taxation is an integral part) are urgently needed to improve income distribution, strengthen the industrial sector, provide incentives for research and development and hence, technological and scientific innovation and their applications, as well as to reinforce co-operatives, small and micro enterprises and family farming.

No doubt, our governments are mindful that cooperatives and small and micro businesses form the nucleus of meaningful labour-intensive employment across the Community. It is therefore desirable that steps be taken to support the sustainable development of these enterprises, with a view to substantially reducing, if not eliminating, their tax burden and facilitating financing. With a similar approach, and bearing in mind particular national conditions, governments must meet the needs of family and cooperative farming and promote their development. In this regard the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the Regional Development Fund (RDF) and the Regional Development Agency (RDA) should play appropriate and necessary roles.

It is being respectfully suggested that the pursuit of fiscal responsibility and monetary stability is useful only to the extent that it serves the social goals identified immediately above. Furthermore, taxation must be based on fairness while tax evasion must be seriously penalised. 

    (c) Foreign Capital, Large Companies and Multinational Corporations

Companies must fulfil their social responsibility and their commitment to social development by adhering strictly and obligatorily to standards no less than those set out in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the United Nations Global Compact, the Tripartite ILO Declaration on Multinational Enterprises and the International Framework Agreements in force. They must take an active role in tripartite and multipartite stakeholder dialogues at national, regional and international levels as appropriate and organize their labour relations on the basis of national and international collective bargaining, while ensuring that branch plants and sub-contractors also fulfil their social responsibilities. Foreign investments must be subjected to strict review procedures to determine the benefits to the national /regional economy, of their operations. This latter condition is particularly necessary in the case of foreign investment in, and exploitation of, non-renewable national resources.

            (d)  Sectoral Policies

Over and over again it has been advanced by technocrats and advisors that an integrated approach to development is the preferred option. It is observed that it has been recommended that the Community’s regional plan for sustainable development and complementary production be pursued via clusters of goods and services industries centred on the energy sector, agriculture, forestry and fishing, sustainable tourism, and other export services and that common sectoral policies, once adopted, “will be complemented by common regimes or harmonised policies in human resource utilisation; fiscal, monetary and incentives policies; transport; investment; financial services; capital market integration; competition; regional quality infrastructure; small and medium enterprises; and corporate governance”. This approach is supported in principle and no doubt the labour movement will look forward to participating in the formulation of these macro and inter-sectoral plans and special programmes and does not expect to be invited to come on board in fait accompli situations.

• Labour Mobility

In Article 45 of Chapter Three of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (RTC) Member States recommit themselves (since they had already agreed in 1992) to the goal of free movement of their nationals within the Community. As a first step towards achieving this goal, five categories of workers were accorded the right to seek employment in the jurisdictions other than their own: university graduates, artistes, media workers, musicians, and sportspersons.

Over the years, there has been a great deal of talk (see communiqués following Heads of Government meetings), as well as false hopes on the part of Community nationals about the list of eligible workers or skills being extended to include nurses, teachers, agricultural workers, construction workers, and hospitality workers. Little has formally been done to cater to these and other would-be migrants; it has only been a lot of ‘ole talk’ and ‘mock sport’ resulting in dashed hopes. The development and effectiveness of the Single Market and Economy is being severely retarded by the inability of skills to move freely, or at least in an orderly fashion. In the best of regional traditions, well-earned and established, Caribbean people, buoyed by legacy, inspired by instinct, facilitated by determination, resourcefulness and ingenuity have augmented the grossly inadequate and unrealistic categories of permitted workers which now unofficially includes not only agricultural and construction workers but higglers, artisans, semi-professionals, domestics and others.

When it comes to the integration process, Caribbean nationals are ahead of the political directorates in many worthwhile respects such as in self-confidence, enthusiasm, and action. For decades their fertile minds, Caribbean-nurtured imagination and innate self-confidence have both propelled them to travel across the Region to obtain work while their industriousness and ingenuity have allowed them to nurture small enterprises. Every opportunity is taken by the people of the Region to meet and interact (e.g. each year public workers particularly in the areas of Customs, Postal Services, and Water, and the public sector generally, meet in different Member States). Over the decades, there have been inter-island marriages and steady liaisons and the establishment of homes. In times of natural disasters there are always exemplary demonstrations of empathy and solidarity by way of tangible forms of assistance resulting time and time again in outstanding recovery being made in record time.

Notwithstanding the persistence of Community nationals to extend the frontiers of regional travel, their inability to travel and work freely within the Community remains one of the most irksome aspects of the integration process. This is particularly galling when it is remembered that under colonial rule the people moved with hardly any restriction. With Cricket World Cup and the putting in place, despite being temporary, of one economic space, Community nationals optimistically expected the arrangements to continue. True to form that was not to be the case.

 Whereas at May 2007 CARICOM Member States had taken most of the steps necessary to effect the free movement of  capital, goods and the free movement of services, only five categories of CARICOM citizens were able to seek employment in only twelve Member States. Furthermore, no Member State had enacted the necessary legislation and effected the administrative arrangements  to give effect to the free movement of self employed service providers, entrepreneurs, technical, managerial and supervisory staff, spouses and immediate family members as well as persons consuming services abroad. 

It is hoped that this aspect of the integration process can be advanced by Member States drawing on the various ILO instruments, the Protocols of the Barbados Social Partnership as well as on the Protocol for Managed Migration being developed by the Government of Barbados.

It needs to be reiterated and emphasised that in order for employment-promotion, macro-economic, employment creation, trade, investment, and competitiveness policies to be operational, expertise, skills and labour must be allowed to be fully mobile across the Region. To do otherwise would be to treat skills and labour as a second class factor, while elevating and according preferential advantage to capital. If such were to be perpetuated over an extended period, no doubt further frustration and alienation of the citizens of the Region would occur and with it, a higher risk of unnecessarily fomenting social discord, impeding productivity and competitiveness and bringing into ill-repute the Region’s reputation. Opportunities for education, training, research and innovation have to be increased substantially. As Girvan advises: The Region’s approach to human resource development and utilisation requires a paradigm shift.    

            (f) Privatisation

Our leaders should be mindful also that developed countries extensively used a wide array of public services (for example: roads, waterways, light-houses, harbours, docks; defence and security; water supply and sanitation; trains, buses and airlines; gas, electricity, telecommunication, postal services and radio wavelengths; the arts; health, education, welfare and pensions; parks and forests; public order, justice and prisons). By the 19^th century public ownership and public provision was common policy and practice continued until Thatcherism, Reaganomics and the Washington Consensus and other neo-liberal “reforms” burst onto the scene. The combined weight of these doctrines on those countries which faithfully followed them, led to the rapid unravelling of carefully crafted economic and social policies, the pauperisation of the country and the undermining and removal of social cohesion.

Public services are organised to meet the needs of community and nation building. Even today, many such services remain in public hands in advanced societies while those same developed countries and their agents and cronies cajole and pressure developing states, precariously on the rungs of sustainable development, to liberalise and privatise similar services.

Regional officials will recall that in 2004, the World Bank admitted that privatization has a low credibility in many developing countries with disapproval rates at over 80 percent in surveys conducted in Argentina and Peru. The World Bank proceeded to place the blame for this state of affairs on what it euphemistically called ‘regulatory weaknesses’.

Jeffrey Sachs, writing recently in the Shanghai Daily, where he was participating in meetings of the African Development Bank held in Shanghai, China, asserted that the World Bank’s failures began in the early 1980s under the ideological sway of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher when, for over an extended period the Bank pushed for privatisation of national health systems, water utilities, road and power networks while grossly under-financing these critical sectors. Sachs went on: “Practical development strategy recognises that public investments – in agriculture, health, education, and infrastructure – are necessary complements to private investments.” ¹³   Right now, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has a petition going that calls on the European Commission to enact legislation designed to:

• Give priority to the general interest embodied in public services;
• Ensure that everyone has access to public services;
• Strengthen public services in order to guarantee citizens’ fundamental rights;
• Guarantee more legal security so as to mallow the development of sustainable public service missions; and
• Give public services a firm legal basis and thus immunity from ideological motivated free market attacks.¹⁴

There is ample evidence to satisfy even the most purblind and weak-kneed of the Region’s political leaders and senior technocrats that a good number of officials from international financial institutions, as well as senior officials of developed countries have little interest in the welfare and well-being of our countries.

In light of the above the Caribbean Development Bank should be asked to review all the privatizations that Member States have undertaken so that impartial evaluations can be conducted on their economic and social impact and their contribution to the formation of oligopolies and private monopolies. These reviews would uncover any corruption that may have occurred so that corrective action can take place. As part of the terms of reference of the Caribbean Development Bank, governments should instruct the CDB to conduct a meticulous analysis of the social and economic impact of the privatisation projects in which they (regional governments) have been involved.

• Foreign Debt

The high level of foreign debt, itself an impeding factor in socio-economic development, has been alluded to elsewhere in this Paper. It needs to be reiterated for emphasis that indebtedness must not undermine the fight against poverty, or restrict the path to sustainable development. For the majority of our countries, the foreign debt constitutes one of the primary obstacles to eradicating poverty and generating sustainable development.

The Region’s trade union organisations have spoken out repeatedly on the doubtful necessity, efficacy and nature of much of that debt (“odious debt”) and on the barriers which prevent our people learning where the money came from and the full accounting for it. Vigorous and persistent efforts must be made for such debts that are owed by the least developed Member States to be cancelled, consistent with priority being accorded to the fight against poverty and to the development of the Region. 

The Member States of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), as shareholders, have the obligation to reform that institution so that approval by national legislatures of recipient countries is required before loan projects can be considered by the IDB’s Board of Directors. National legislatures ought, as well, to have the authority to convene hearings on proposed IDB-funded projects and policies, including the power to subpoena Bank officials. The IDB must also adopt a safeguard policy in accordance with labour standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO), applicable to all projects and policies, including follow-up, and applicable as well to Bank personnel. The active participation of national trade unions in all phases of loan negotiation and project financing is essential to monitor the social and labour impact of programmes implemented and to ensure transparency and participation in the entire process.

Bearing in mind the potential debilitating effect of uncontrollable debt it may be useful, in certain cases, to have instituted Constitutional ceilings on foreign and domestic debt.

(h) National Income Distribution

One cannot help but notice the severe disparity in the level of development among Member States and territories; as a consequence, the labour movement and its constituents rooted as they are in a profound sense of solidarity and based on sound judgement, must support the proposed improvement measures and compensatory mechanisms (e.g. Article 49, the Regional Development Fund and the Regional Development Agency) whereby  special attention is to be  paid to and special opportunities provided Less Developed Countries (LDCs) in need, with a view to working towards achieving a greater measure of economic independence and effectiveness of Member States in their dealings with other states and groups of states.¹⁵

However, it is recognised that, though a great deal remains to be done in this particular regard, policy-makers would move swiftly to deliver, in timely fashion, with a view to producing “quick hits”, thereby vindicating the expectations of those Member States that qualify and by so doing inspire confidence in nationals of those affected States.

(i) Infrastructure Integration

No doubt the labour movement will accept the provisions set out in Chapter Six (Transport Policy)¹⁶ in the Revised Treaty, but it should be pointed out hastily that special measures to enhance general infrastructure (for instance, in relation to adequate and reliable water and sewage systems, internal transportation, energy systems, quality health care and appropriate human resource development) – all with a view to promoting sustainable development, full employment and improved communication among people and businesses – are scant and not specific (e.g. Article 54 .3 (a) of the Revised Treaty).

It is against this background that Labour’s Platform for the Caribbean is being commended to our leaders. And it is against this same background that it should be analysed, evaluated and embraced for in relation to the Region’s development ‘Business as usual’ can no longer be tolerated.

Promotion and Fulfilment of Social and Labour Rights

            The International Labour Organisation (ILO)¹⁷ has defined decent work as follows:

“Decent work means productive work in which rights are protected, which generates   an adequate income, with adequate social protection.  It also means sufficient work, in the sense that all should have full access to income-earning opportunities. It marks the high road to economic and  social development, a road in which employment, income  and social protection can be achieved without compromising  workers’ rights and social  standards.” 

Since the free market model was intensified in the Americas and the Caribbean every indicator of social well-being and decent working conditions in most countries have deteriorated noticeably: employment, job stability, quality of life, social mobility rates, and levels of equality. The scarcity and sustainability of decent jobs has frayed the social safety net, reducing labour rights in many instances to mere declarations, reducing the tremendous potential of social dialogue between the social partners and in the process, undermining employers’ implicit commitment to their social responsibility and the Region’s competitiveness.

In light of the above, it is incumbent on the Region’s trade union movement to do all it can, preferably in collaboration with others, to ensure that national economies (and by extension the regional economy) are structured and managed in such a way as to deliver these important needs to our people. In this regard, every Caribbean should be heartened by the support of the Barbadian Prime Minister: “The creation of a single economic space in the Caribbean, must therefore embrace a process which seeks to decrease the “decent work deficit” wherever it exists, and which maintains a commitment to the respect for workers’ right and the fair treatment of workers without regard for nationality, socio-economic background or race.”¹⁸

At the core of any successful alternative development policy initiative must be Decent Work for Sustainable Development.

As stated above, bringing about economic growth and prosperity requires a challenging array of policies, synchronised to some degree, implemented in a sensible sequence and sustained. However, there is a discernible trend in the Region to favour capital over labour conveniently forgetting that a person’s existence neither begins at the door of the workplace nor ends there. Therefore, effectively catering to the needs of a citizen is a comprehensive exercise that entails, in addition to the above-cited factors, meaningful engagement of the social partners as well as other considerations (some of which are set out below) if the Region is to seriously confront and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

(i)  Food Security

Like other matters of concern to organised labour, food security overlaps the economic, social and governance spheres. Our political leaders are committed  “…to effect[ing] a fundamental transformation of the agricultural sector of the Community by diversifying agricultural production, intensifying agro-industrial development, expanding agri-business, strengthening the linkages between the  agricultural sector and other sectors of the CSME and generally conducting agricultural production on a market-oriented, internationally competitive  and environmentally sound basis.”¹⁹

In addition to the observations made above, the Region’s governments, in ways appropriate to each national circumstance, must support the development of farming, including family farms and cooperatives, via policies to guarantee domestic food supply and food sovereignty. Governments must support an approach to agriculture which protects the environment, guarantees nutritious food to all the people and respect the relationship between communities and their natural environments. Creativity and effort should be employed to create sustainable jobs in an expanded agricultural regime, aimed at increasing the availability of fresh and healthy products, reduce dependency on foreign food imports, contribute to the export sector, save foreign exchange, provide sustainable jobs and spawn spin-off industries and products while facilitating new expertise. The massive food import bill (in excess of US$3 billion), in the context of huge unexploited open spaces and high unemployment is an affront to all Caribbean people.

(b) Full Employment

Achieving full employment on a sustained basis, given the ever-changing global environment in which we live and function, will require that all relevant policies be oriented toward the goals of creating decent jobs and achieving international competitiveness. The realisation of this twin goal will involve macro- economic  (i.e. Community-wide) policies on investment, technological innovation, infrastructure, national use of natural resources and the environment, trade, production, migration, human resource development, social responsibility for domestic and reproductive work, social services, and social security.

Governments should spurn social policies oriented exclusively toward adjusting the demand for labour and which consider unemployment to be a temporary problem due to difficulties of “employability”.

The Region’s existing political and ideological templates that unquestionably and universally accept capitalism as the foundation of national and international economic policies, as well as globalisation and liberalisation in their present forms need to be challenged resolutely and consistently. There is enough evidence of wrongdoing on the part of some developed countries and their surrogate international mouthpieces and many of the international financial institutions (IFIs) for the Region’s governments to jettison the present in-many-ways unsuitable economic orthodoxy being preached and promoted²⁰ that involves double standards (e.g. WTO case Antigua v USA and the OECD allegation of harmful tax havens), disrespect and opaqueness and to supplant it by embracing an indigenous alternative model of development.

            (c) Gender Issues

“The most persistent of these [rising disparities within and between nations] has

been gender disparity, despite a relentless struggle to equalize opportunities between women and men. The unfinished agenda for change is still considerable …

In many legal systems, they are still unequal. They often work longer hours than

            men, but much of their work remains unvalued, unrecognized and unappreciated.

           And the threat of violence stalks their lives from cradle to grave.”²¹

More than a decade later, and despite the adoption in 2001 of an Action Plan for Mainstreaming Gender in Key CARICOM Programmes, agreat deal is yet to be achieved in order for theabove condemnation to be rendered untrue and unrepresentative of our societies. The new developmental path forward, being advocated for the Caribbean as envisaged by Organised Labour and its NGO community partners, will not be realised without fully embracing genuine democracy, a gender perspective, and human rights.

The people of the Community fervently aspire to, urgently seek, and greatly deserve a new consensus based on the following objectives:

• Strengthening democracy and achieving full respect for human rights;
• Broadening the channels for citizen participation in national, regional and international decision-making;
• Achieving social justice;
• Integrating a gender perspective into all policies;
• Eliminating all forms of discrimination on the basis of class, race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation;
• Establishing full employment as the basis for sustainable development;
• Ensuring no man, woman, or child is excluded from our societies; and
• Rebuilding the capacity of governments to take proactive measures.

It is being respectfully suggested that a multilateral and multicultural Community based on institutions open to real participation by the citizenry will constitute a sound basis for achieving freedom and social justice. Constructing a democratic society requires the permanent integration of gender perspectives into all public policies, because all aspects of production, reproduction and caring are relevant to addressing the disparities between men and women.

All institutions and programmes, all policies and laws, all agreements and decisions, be they national, sub-regional or regional, should contain mechanisms which allow for bringing a gender perspective to bear and which guarantee women’s active participation and respect their rights as Community nationals and as workers. In addition, public policy should seek to prevent violence against women, guarantee sexual and reproductive rights and take into account women’s unpaid labour in the home.  

Adopting a gender perspective implies not only designing and delivering programmes for women, but creating programmes that transform the system of gender relations thereby encouraging men and women to make positive changes that place women and men in a position of equality. Women’s condition will only be effectively transformed if such changes are encouraged through innovative social policies which modify not only economic structures, but also the structures of power and authority so that women’s rightful role as active agents of social change is fully acknowledged.

The contents of the Charter for Civil Liberties, the Declaration of Labour and Industrial Relations Principles, and the broad intentions outlined in Articles 17 and 63 of the Revised Treaty are not potent enough to satisfy Community nationals. Certainly the treatment of female workers in particular, and labour matters in general, are not accorded the specificity and comprehensiveness accorded to capital. 

Additional specific programmes for women must be created to further improve their access to the labour market and to promote equality of opportunity and treatment, especially regarding wages, working conditions, labour rights, family responsibilities and public child care policy.

By now, CARICOM’s Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) would have received the Tripartite Declaration and Plan of Action from the ILO’s Tripartite Caribbean Employment Forum which in part, calls for the adoption of at least ten strategies aimed at creating greater opportunities for women and men to secure decent employment and incomes.

It would be reasonable to hold the view that in addition to the forgoing specific steps must be taken to objectively evaluate particular work being performed by men and women so as to establish what is work of equal value and, as a consequence, bring to an end forthwith the unequal levels of remuneration between men and women.

(c)  Jobs for Youth

The Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas in Article 63, addresses Human Resource Development in exhortatory language. References are made also about human resources development in the Rose Hall Declaration (2003), the ILO’s Tripartite Caribbean Employment Forum ²² (2006) and other documents. There is also a Regional Strategy on Youth Development that was conceived around 2000 and seeks to address, in thematic fashion, research, institutional strengthening, human resource development, empowerment and participation, youth poverty, and adolescent health.

If the importance of young persons and the need for their effective and rounded development is to be accepted as a genuine position, then appropriate policies conceptualised with their participation, should be introduced in support of youth employment, guaranteeing all rights for our young women and men, paying particular attention to ILO Convention 138 on Minimum Working Age and Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour. These policies would be aimed at contributing to the eradication of rotating minimum wage jobs and precarious working conditions. New, decent, sustainable jobs should be created for young workers, instead of youth displacing adult workers who also need employment.

In addition to the new and apposite education and skills fields – “self-confident, innovation-oriented, multi-skilled, IT-literate, foreign language competent, entrepreneurial…critical and creative thinking” – and the desirability of “appropriate education and training in order to improve the overall well-being of the people” already identified by Community officials, the new generation of Caribbean citizens should be educated about their human, civil, social and labour rights.²³ This will assist their successful entry to the world of work and will guarantee them opportunities to gain much-needed social and professional skills and encourage community participation.

            (d)  Access to Knowledge

Notwithstanding  the mentions in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, the Charter of Civil Liberties (Preamble), the  Regional Strategy for Technical and Vocational Training (1990), and the Regional Education Policy (1993) (amalgamated in 1997, and expanded to form the Human Development Strategy), as well as the Rose Hall Declaration, the Declaration of  Labour and Industrial Relations Principles and the Girvan Report, in the Caribbean, unfettered access to scientific and technological knowledge must be guaranteed in all areas that affect living organisms, bio-diversity and the traditional knowledge of our people. Technology transfer to lesser developed Member States must be facilitated. Wealthy countries ought to provide adequate compensation for socio-economic losses caused by deliberately encouraging the migration of highly trained professionals, via the so-called self-sponsorship and other sponsorship plans, thus contributing to the “brain drain”.

            (e)  Education and Professional Training

Bearing in mind the provisions in Article 63 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, the generalities in the Preamble to the Declaration of Labour and Industrial Relations Principles, and along the generally agreed lines, ²⁴ Member States must guarantee access to free quality public education and ensure continuation through to graduation so that Community citizens can fully exercise their rights. Programmes which provide general education, childcare from birth, and professional training, must be broadened to integrate a gender perspective, and must provide life-long support, so workers can acquire the necessary skills to be integrated successfully in the workforce.

(f) Elimination of Child Labour

The Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (RTC) will have to be amended as soon as practicable to include, inter alia, legal measures to underpin national policies to eliminate all forms of child exploitation. This is particularly needed when it is recalled that six of the eight Millennium Development Goals have at their core the well-being and welfare of children. The complete elimination of child labour must be undertaken through an integrated approach which guarantees girls and boys free quality, public education from pre-school age, while ensuring employment for adults in the family. 

            (g) Balancing Work and Family

The Social Charter at Article XVI requires Member States to endeavour to ensure that the necessary conditions for the promotion of family life and effective parenting skills exist and that every effort is made to ensure full employment and protection of the family, including the extended family. In light of this mandate, the countries of the Caribbean must undertake a serious effort to introduce policies that seek to balance the needs of family and those of the workplace, so that work is compatible with family life and caring for children, the sick, the disabled, and the elderly.

In discharging this responsibility, governments and regional institutions must actively pay attention to this need to balance work and family life and well-being in three principal areas:

1. Within companies, consider a reduced workweek without loss of pay, so that the rights of working men and women to attend to their families’ needs becomes part of companies’ social responsibility.
2. Within society, strengthen public systems, that are accessible to all men and women, and which support caring for children, the sick, the disabled, and the elderly.
3. Within male-dominated cultures, bestow social value on reproductive work and promote the desirability of domestic duties being distributed equitably between men and women.

(h) Discrimination

To guarantee equality of opportunity and treatment in the workplace, public anti-discrimination polices should be promoted and strictly enforced by new tripartite boards, which should pay particular attention to discrimination by gender, race, sexual orientation, national origin and culture. The rights and labour of all workers must be respected. Policies regarding equality of opportunity and treatment should be coordinated, should include affirmative action where appropriate and should set indicators to allow for periodic accounting of progress, or lack thereof. Notwithstanding the provisions of the Charter of Civil Society the governments in the Caribbean must take specific steps to protect and preserve cultures and indigenous rights. 

(i)  Social Safety Nets and Universal Access

 The Region must adopt a new approach to economic, social and labour policies if Community citizens are to realise the prosperity, standard of living, comfort and peace for which they yearn. There is an extremely serious predicament facing the Region because:

1. Social security is a human right which seems not to be recognised;
2. The exclusion of thousands of workers from quality health care²⁵ and social security undermines productivity, denudes purchasing power and ultimately depresses the level of employment;
3. Some of these systems are experiencing managerial and financial troubles;
4. It is not in the national interest to await job creation through economic growth before putting new social policies into effect;   
5. As long as the economies are not generating enough formal jobs, governments must guarantee social benefits to working men and women, whether they are formally or informally employed, or unemployed;
6. It is practically impossible to imagine an equitable and sustainable system of social security without improving employment levels and increasing formal employment and family incomes.

Given the above, the Region’s governments are encouraged to adopt new approaches to economic, social and labour policies. Social security systems should be reformed, not only because many were designed to address only those in the formal employment sector and did not envision the drastic social, economic, technological and political changes that have taken place, not to mention the new forms of employment, increased insecurity in a global economy, a growing informal sector and changes to gender relations and family structures.

Additionally, the principle of universal access to services and to coverage, must be a deliberate policy including provision for children, the elderly, and the disabled, by making progress towards the indivisibility of services and by achieving sustainable financing with social justice, while at the same time doing away with approaches based on profit, where such exists.

To fight poverty effectively, universal access to quality social services and adequate social security should be coordinated with job-creation and labour and income policies, so as not to split society into those who have jobs and those who receive assistance.

 There should be a review of those policies and programmes that take into consideration balancing the need for an efficient labour market with effective protection, as well as the provision of social protection and employment relief programmes to respond effectively to emergencies arising from natural disasters.

The relevant systems in Barbados  as well as the Nordic Model²⁶ should be studied with a view to the introduction of progressive and socially-just schemes by Member States and, as a consequence, the establishment of efficient, effective and truly regional social security and health care systems.

(j) Unionization and Collective Bargaining

To significantly enhance competitiveness, achieve a real and lasting improvement in the living conditions of the working men and women of the Caribbean, as well as a deepening of democracy, labour rights must be promoted and respected and mechanisms for collective bargaining established and strengthened, as the case may be, at all levels. The organizations of working men and women must be protagonists in the design and implementation of such mechanisms. 

In this regard, the relevant provisions of the Declaration of Labour and Industrial Relations Principles (Articles 3 and 4: respectively Right to Organise and to Membership; and Right to Regulate Internal Arrangements), must be rigorously adhered to, as intended by ILO Conventions No 87 and 98. Genuine efforts must be made, not only to ratify the several other essential Conventions outstanding, but Member States must honour the obligations flowing therefrom.

As required by the October 2006 Declaration and  Plan of Action of the ILO Tripartite Caribbean Employment Forum, there should be, inter alia, athorough review of national legislation and policies, including in the context of on-going labour reform, in order to ensure that it is in accordance with fundamental principles and rights at work and relevant ILO Conventions; collaboration in efforts to harmonise labour legislation with the support of the ILO to the extent possible and within the established national legislative framework; and improve compliance with national legislation, regulations and codes by strengthening monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, through education and raising awareness. 

Organised Labour should not regard itself as being treated as a genuine Social Partner if the environment in which is required to function is littered with these double standards, deficiencies and impediments.         

(k) Formal Employment

There is an urgent need to substantially increase the number of decent jobs, even in Member States with relatively low un-employment. To this end, governments must enact an aggressive enforcement policy to ensure compliance with and full respect for national labour legislation, as well as improvements in said laws. 

(l) Labour Boards, Tribunals, etc

In those Member States where they exist, labour courts are slow to resolve disputes and thus, not only violate the individual and collective rights of working men and women but, in the process, fail spectacularly to promote themselves. Accordingly, a complete review of these mechanisms, including their structure, resources and efficacy, should be undertaken at an early stage.

(m) Safety and Health and Labour Inspection

Governments need to strengthen and streamline all Public Sector inspection and enforcement mechanisms with a view to promoting a culture of safety and accident prevention and so that employers comply effectively with labour laws. All Member States must adopt the core conventions of the International Labour Organization and monitor companies’ compliance.

Additionally, it is being suggested to Governments that they should move earnestly and resolutely to strengthen labour administrations and develop sound labour market information systems (i.e. labour statistics, and electronic labour exchanges) to inform policy design and monitor implementation, while reviewing legislation relating to occupational safety and health to ensure that the causes of accidents and illnesses are covered through the regulatory mechanisms. 

(n)  Workers’ Freedom of Movement

One of the principles of the labour movement of the Caribbean is that restrictions impeding the free movement of Community persons should be elimination. In the Caribbean, thousands of working men and women and their families are obliged to migrate, pushed out by inadequate opportunities and by poverty and, in some instances, the enormous and unconscionable gulf between rich and poor.  For those workers who and their families have emigrated, no matter their migratory status, the authorities should at least honour the floor of rights guaranteed by the International Convention on the Protection of all Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families as well as ILO Conventions Nos. 97 and 143 on Migrant Workers. Governments should also acknowledge the principle that no one should be sent back to where their rights have been violated. In addition, in those instances where such arrangements do not exist, ways must be found to link pension systems more effectively so that the upheaval caused by migration is not aggravated by the loss of benefits.  

Bearing the above in mind, a transparent and proactive labour migration policy should be formulated, in conformity with national employment and labour market strategies to optimize gains and minimise losses from migration, help manage intra-regional migration, enhance the regulatory mechanisms and protect migrant workers being guided by the ILO Non-binding Multilateral Framework on Labour Migration (2005). [See also (e) above].      

Improving Governance

One of the responsibilities entrusted to a government is that of managing the affairs of state on behalf of the people of that state. In basic fashion, this is done in such a manner as to meet the expectations of the citizens, dispense power, and confirm performance. One noted Regional commentator characterised good governance as “Ultimately, good governance refers to no more and no less than the fundamental character of the relations between citizen and state being”.²⁷ Good governance also entails and relies on civic engagement or public participation, for among other things, it lends legitimacy to policy decisions. Accordingly, decision-making in the Community should be improved so that it becomes more effective and representative of the needs and desires of Community citizens.

The Technical Working Group set up by the Heads tells us in their Report that: “Given the length of time already spent on the consideration of regional governance in the Caribbean, it is recommended that a decision on the subject be adopted with due sense of urgency. This is especially so in the context of achieving the objectives envisaged in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas which remain central to the survival and prosperity of the Region.”²⁸

As part of the thrust being advocated, the Charter of Civil Liberties, the Declaration of Labour and Industrial Relations Principles and other relevant provisions should be reviewed and updated, before being cloaked in the force of law. Measures should be taken to include the other social partners in the Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians.

The following are measures which could be worthy of favourable consideration:

1. Create decision-making procedures for tripartite and multipartite labour consultations, under the auspices of the International Labour Organization (ILO).
2. Continue to link the regional integration processes to sub-regional (e.g. OECS) integration processes while respecting their autonomy.
3. Establish affirmative action measures which guarantee that at least one-third of all representative and consultative positions be filled by women.  
4. Strengthen the Community’s Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD).         
5. Submit fundamental international decisions to citizen ratification and organize a system for democratic citizen appeal of the same.
6. Incorporate a gender perspective into the policy formulation and budgets.
7. Guarantee financing for the Caribbean Human Rights Commission and Court so that they can implement, monitor and follow-up on their decisions.
8. Review the CARICOM Charter for Civil Society to bring it in line with the Social Charter of the Americas submitted to the OAS in 2005, thereby making it consistent with the current hemispheric system for human, civil and political, social and cultural rights and the system’s protective mechanisms and institutions.           

The above could be buttressed in significant and telling ways, if our political directorates would:

• Devolve at least small amounts of responsibility and authority to the long-mooted CARICOM Commission. It is not to the credit of Heads of Government to appear preoccupied with seeking meaningful integration while at the same time individual states insist on maintaining full and absolute sovereignty.
• Accord “Associate Organs of the Community” status to Labour, the Business Community, and the Non-governmental Organisations (including the Church).
• Resuscitate the Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians and induct into it, the social partners as well as representatives of the youth and women.
• Engage the social partners to assist in formulating and participating in an extensive public education programme, highlighting the need for regional integration to succeed in a timely manner, bearing in mind that it has been widely accepted as the best prospect and means for the Region’s prosperity, while at the same time underscoring the non-partisan nature of the integration exercise.
• Identify a short prioritised list of those areas that can be safely and promptly exploited, thereby immediately providing jobs, saving/earning foreign exchange, exhibiting best practices, resonating with the people of the region and more strongly attracting their goodwill.   

If such were acted upon with vigour and alacrity, not only would the pace of the integration exercise be quickened but its quality would be deepened in meaningful ways

Conclusions

The Caribbean is, for the most part, characterized by a large grouping of extremely vulnerable micro-economic entities in the context of fragile democratic systems recently emerged from decades of colonial rule and exploitation which stunted the development of these societies. In many jurisdictions, the State is the largest single employer and as such, the public sector pay rates and industrial relations policies and practices exert substantial influence on private sector policies including remunerations.

The economies of the Caribbean are further characterized by a large informal/parallel sector where workers enjoy little or no social protection in this under-reported sector, where wages are generally quite below the minimum necessary to sustain life. In this sector, conditions can be quite appalling. Here trade unionism is largely absent and labour enforcement extremely weak, if at all.

Taken as a whole, the Region is well endowed with natural resources of all types and human resources capable of fostering development in all spheres of activity. Notwithstanding all this potential wealth, there are unacceptable levels of poverty and deprivation in each and every Member State. There is an unemployment, under-employment and gender imbalance with the consequential inability of our economies to provide adequate health care, quality education and training opportunities, and social provision for the citizens of the Community. 

In addition, there is rampant crime and violence, a flourishing narcotics industry, and possibly money laundering, tax evasion, and other forms of white collar crime. 

Because of the heavy influence of the tourism sector, the economies, in many instances, are dominated by the services sector, comprising small and middling enterprises related to tourism. Small enterprises and the off-shore financial services sector do not always facilitate unionization of labour.

Another important feature of Caribbean industrial relations is not only that regional governments are usually the largest single employer, but they are also responsible for the institutions established to promote the social welfare and protection of workers. A number of Regional governments are not strongly sympathetic to the workers’ cause and it often becomes unavoidable to struggle, not only against private sector employers, but also against the governments themselves. This is particularly evident with regard to the ratification and honouring of ILO conventions. Too many governments have neither ratified important Conventions, nor passed enabling domestic legislation for those Conventions that have been ratified. Too often Conventions are observed in the breach. However, since Member States are duty-bound, by virtue of membership of the International Labour Organization, to honour all Conventions, Caribbean trade unions must demonstrate a readiness to prosecute their claims at the level of the International Labour Office.

One of the most important challenges facing Caribbean people and in particular the working class, is whether the present economic arrangements are adequate to create the quality and quantity of jobs needed to provide a reasonable and secure standard of living, so as to act as a barrier to them sliding into poverty, crime and other social ills associated with an inappropriate, encumbered and ailing economic and social system. This paramount pressing issue needs to be addressed courageously, promptly, and resolutely.

Whereas the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, as well as reports and studies, constitute a clear and relatively reliable road map on which the Community’s political directorate and technocrats can initiate development policies and programmes in a meaningful manner, the failure to entrench people at the very centre of the Community’s integration and development efforts, both as participants and as beneficiaries, on a foundation of decent jobs and sustainable full employment, is a glaring oversight. In this regard, the Caribbean Congress of Labour’s Labour Platform of the Caribbean is unreservedly commended to our leaders – both in politics as well as in business.

Given the track record of our political leaders after decades of meandering, false starts, and outright refusal to implement agreed decisions, the people of the Community should not, normally, expect any positive behavioural changes on their part. However, for a plethora of good reasons, time is of the essence and there should be no further procrastination and prevarication.

At the time of writing, it was noted that the Girvan Report has suggested that more technical work and political approval were required, among other things, on the proposed “broad outline and thrust of the Development Vision and Regional Development Strategy”  identified in the said report. It is expected that in carrying out this work, the CARICOM Secretariat and/or the Consultant will recognise that there must be policy coherence if decent jobs, full employment and sustained prosperity are to be realised. This includes macro-economic policies as well as policies on investment, technological innovation, infrastructure, rational use of natural resources and the environment, trade, production, education, social services and social security, and migration.  

It cannot be business as usual if we are to take integration and use it as a facilitator to quicker, equitable, comprehensive and sustainable development. The Region’s people deserve and expect marked improvements in their working and living conditions. They have been patient; very patient. The Labour Movement is insisting, in the name of the people of the Community, on a development agenda based on quality governance, sound decision-making and alacritous action, grounded in political will and eschewing a culture of paramountcy of personal political survival and insular economic policy, while paying full attention to the Region’s well-being as a whole, rather than on the next national election.

An abundance of evidence exists that confirms the deceitfulness of the Developed Countries and their allies.²⁹ There is also ample evidence that socio-economic policies designed in and for developed countries are quite often ill-suited to small, fragile economies such as those of the Region. To demonstrate that they mean business, that they are prepared to adopt an alternative and radical approach to the Region’s economic and social development and governance as well as to the welfare of the governed, our political heads need to sit down and discuss with those for whom they are supposed to be working, the potential of an indigenously conceived and articulated comprehensive socio-economic development policy.

The people are convinced that the Region possesses the necessary human resources with the knowledge, expertise, experience, wisdom and commitment to meaningfully accelerate its development and integration in a relatively short period. Organised labour is persuaded that there is more than enough goodwill and enthusiasm residing within and among the people to astonishingly propel the integration process and make our forefathers proud of all of us. What is required on the part of the regional political directorate is matching courage and commitment, thereby demonstrating to the people of the Community that meaningful regional integration and sustainable development are both necessary and achievable in our generation. Our leaders must lead from the front displaying principle, political will, testicular fortitude and steadfastness. This would be the antidote to their collective Achilles Heel.

Principal References

List of reports, books, and other documents consulted for this Paper on Labour’s Platform for the Caribbean: Labour’s Perspective for  Sustainable Peopled- Centred Development in the context of the Caribbean Economy and Single Market:

Arthur, Owen Rt. Hon. The Role of Labour in Promoting the Caribbean Single Market and Economy Lecture to the 15^th Triennial Delegates’ Conference of the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL) Paramaribo, Suriname, October 2004 

Benn, D Human Capital Development for Global Competitiveness Defining Priorities and Articulating Strategies Paper presented at the Caribbean Forum for Development (Barbados May 2005)

Caribbean Development Bank Annual Report 2005 CDB (Wildey, St. Michael, Barbados 2006)

CARICOM Secretariat, Grand Anse Declaration and Work Programme for the Advancement of the Integration Movement Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Grand Anse, Grenada, July1989

CARICOM Secretariat, Towards a CARICOM Single Market and Economy Caribbean Community(CARICOM) Secretariat 1991

CARICOM Secretariat, Charter of Civil Society for the Caribbean Community Caribbean Community (CARICOM) 1997

CARICOM Secretariat, CARICOM Declaration of Labour and Industrial Relations Principles Caribbean Community (CARICOM) 1999

CARICOM Secretariat, Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas Establishing the Caribbean Community Including the CARICOM Single Market & Economy Caribbean Community (CARICOM) 2002

CARICOM Secretariat, The Rose Hall Declaration Adopted on the Occasion of the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) at the Twenty-fourth Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Governments of CARICOM (Montego Bay, Jamaica, July 2003) 

CARICOM Secretariat, Report of the Technical Sub-Group on the Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians (ACCP) July 2004

CARICOM Secretariat, CARICOM Our Caribbean Community Caribbean Community 2005 and Ian Randle Publishers New York 2005

CARICOM Secretariat, Communiqué issued on the conclusion of the Meeting of Heads of Government Caribbean Community (CARICOM)     (Gros Islet, St. Lucia, July 2005)

CIOSL-ICFTU ORIT Labour’s Platform for the Americas: Decent Work for Sustainable Development in the Americas (August 2005)

Daily Nation newspaper Barbados Tuesday October 4, 2005

Demas, William G West Indian Development and the Deepening & Widening of the Caribbean Community

De Peana, George CSME: Labour’s Contribution and Concerns Address to the Conference on CSME and its Legal Implications: What Does it Mean for Me and You (Port of Spain March 2007)

Girvan, Norman Towards a Single Economy and A Single Market: Development Vision, Report for the Special Meeting of the Heads of Government (October 2006)  

Gonsalves, Ralph The Hon. Ensuring Our Tomorrows Address to the 56^th Annual Conference of the National Union of Public Workers (St. Michael, Barbados March 2000)

ILO Tripartite Declaration and Plan of Action for Realizing the Decent Work Agenda in the Caribbean Tripartite Employment Forum (Barbados, October 10-12, 2006) 

Lewis, Vaughan Managing Mature Regionalism: Regional Governance in the Caribbean Community, Report of the Technical Working Group on Governance Appointed by CARICOM Heads of Government (October 2006)

Stiglitz, Joseph Globalization and its Discontents Penguin Books 2002

Thomas, C.Y A State of Disarray: Public Policy in the Caribbean

Bulletin of Eastern Caribbean Affairs 1996 Vol. 21, No. 2, pp 46-56

Inaugural Lecture, Bank of Nova Scotia Public Lecture Series, ISER, UWI (Barbados, March 1996)

Thomas, C.Y The Development Glass: Half Empty or Half Full: Perspectives on Caribbean Development Sixth William G. Demas Memorial Lecture, Caribbean Development Bank, (Georgetown, Guyana May 2005)

UNDP UNDP Human Development Report 1995 United Nations Development Programme (New York, 1995)    

West Indian Commission Time for Action Report of the West Indian Commission (Bridgetown, Barbados 1992)

West Indian Commission To be a Canoe Occasional Paper No. 3 West Indian Commission (St. Michael, Barbados 1991)

World Bank A Time to Choose: Caribbean Development in the 21^st Century World Bank (Washington, DC April 2005)

End Notes

1. Professor Clive Thomas, Daily Nation (Barbados), Tuesday October 4,2005).
2. To be a Canoe (An interim report of the West Indian Commission) July 1991, Ian Randle 2005) P. 61.
3. CARICOM Our Caribbean Community An Introduction ( Ian Randle 2005)

P .23 7.

4. Thomas, C.Y The Development Glass: Half Empty or Half Full: Perspectives on

Caribbean Development Sixth William G. Demas Memorial Lecture  (Georgetown, Guyana; May, 2005).

5. Demas, William G. West Indian Development and the Deepening & Widening of the Caribbean Community, Ian Randle Publishers & ISER, University of the West Indies 1997 p. 7.
6. —————Towards West Indian Survival West Indian Commission (St. James,

Barbados November, 1990) (See also CARICOM Our Caribbean Community: An Introduction pp 10-31).

7. Demas, William G op.cit 5.
8. Thomas C.Y op.cit (May 2005).
9. Thomas C.Y The Development Glass: Half Empty or Half Full: Perspectives on

Caribbean Development (Sixth William G. Demas Memorial Lecture) (Guyana May, 2005).

10. Arthur, O.S. The Role of Labour in Promoting the Caribbean Single Market and

Economy Lecture by Rt. Hon. Owen Arthur, Prime Minister of Barbados, October, 2004.

1. Report of the Director General: Decent Work ILO June 1999 defines decent work

as follows:

“Decent work means productive work, in which rights are protected, which generates an adequate income, with adequate social protection. It also means sufficient work, in the sense that all should have full access to income-earning opportunities. It marks the high roads to economic and social development, a road in which employment, income, and social protection can be achieved without compromising workers’ rights and social standards.”

12. See Towards A Single Economy and a Single Development Vision Report by

Norman Girvan, October 2006.

13. The Jagdeo Initiative is a framework tabled at the 25th Heads of Government Conference in Grenada (July 4-7,2004) by the President of Guyana who has Lead Responsibility for Agriculture, Agricultural Diversification and Food Security that identifies a number of critical elements necessary for agriculture to be a vibrant economic sector: agriculture as a business; agriculture as holistic 6) spanning the entire agri-product chain and productive sectors; the need to recognize the increasing importance of value­ added food products and non-food products along with sub-regional and regional activities which add value to national initiatives.
14. Op.cit. Section 13 suggests, inter alia, a goal of accelerated economic growth through adjustment and transformation of regional economies; greatly improved international competitiveness, sustained innovation and productivity growth. . . growth with some movement towards income convergence in mind; utilization of dynamic, sustainable development-oriented social partnership.

Section III recommends inter alia economic policy harmonization involving investment, including attracting FDI; harmonization of tax regimes; the establishment of a seamless financial services market; integration of the capital market; enhanced monetary cooperation/monetary union.

Section IV deals with social and institutional structures as part of the enabling environment and places great store on quality human resources and its development as well as on the existence of a solid social partnership; emphasizes the crucial role of research and development; stresses the importance of small and medium enterprises; promotes the desirability for strong corporate governance; cites the need for an effective competition policy as well as a regional quality infrastructure; repeats the need for adequate and efficient maritime and air transportation; and supports the need for both a CARICOM Development Fund and a Regional Development Agency.

15. Sachs J. Shanghai Daily May 28, 2007. Sachs, a 2001 Nobel laureate of economics, is a professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
16. . See http://www.etuc.org/r/5.
17. CARICOM Secretariat CARICOM Our Caribbean Community: An Introduction

(op.cit. P 61).

18. Article 134 states that the goal of the Community Transport Policy shall be the

    provision of adequate, safe and internationally competitive transport services for

the development and consolidation of the CSME and proceeds to set out the

following objectives:

• The organization of efficient, reliable, affordable transport services throughout the Community;
• The development and expansion of air and maritime transport and capacities in the Community;
• The promotion of cooperative arrangements for the provision of transport services;
• The development of efficient internationally competitive ancillary transport services;
• the development of human efficient resources for employment in all areas and at all levels of the transport sector;
• the implementation of standards for the development of safe road, riverine, sea and air transport services

 19. International Labour Organisation Report of the Director-General: Decent Work

1999. The strategic objectives of the Decent Work Agenda are: Promoting and realizing standards; Creating greater opportunities for women and men to secure decent employment and incomes; Enhancing the coverage and effectiveness of social protection for all; and strengthening tripartism and social dialogue.

20. Arthur, O. ibid 2004 The Role of Labour in Promoting the Caribbean Single Market and Economy Lecture by Rt. Hon. Owen Arthur, Prime Minister of Barbados, October 2004.

21. Preamble to Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas page 2.

22. For instance, while the EU and the USA, and one of their mouthpieces the WTO have been insisting that developing and transitional economies open their markets massive sums in subsidies are provided their own farmers.

Only recently the IMF chastised the government of Barbados for providing incentives to attract investors especially from overseas while the said IMF is absolutely mum, for instance, on the huge agricultural subsidies being provided by the USA and the EU to their farmers. See also Stiglitz J 2006 Dissent: Unconventional Economic Wisdom and Sachs J op. ed. in Shanghai Daily of May 28, 2007.

23. UNDP Human Development Report 1995.

24. ILO 2006 Tripartite Declaration and Plan of Action for Realising the Decent

Work Agenda in the Caribbean.

25. See also Our Caribbean Community: Introduction PP 145-146.

26. Ibid. Girvan 2006 Towards a Single Economy and Single Development Vision

Report by Norman Girvan, October 2006.

27. The Tripartite Declaration and Plan of Action calls for the development of national programmes designed to protect and maintain the health of the population recognizing the prevalence of lifestyle diseases.

28. Under both Models there are extensive benefits, relatively low levels of unemployment, low inflation and comparatively high standards of living.

29. Thomas, C.Y Ibid 1996 (P.56).

30. Managing Mature Regionalism: Regional Governance in the Caribbean Community Report of the Technical Working Group on Governance, October 2006.

31. For examples see: Budhoo Davison L Enough is Enough New Horizon Press New York (1990); Dubro, Alec and Konopacki, Mike The World Bank: A Tale of power JG Plunder and Resistance PSI (ND); Perkins, John Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; Elbury Press, Random House (2006); UNDP Human Development Report (1997) p.87.