Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Fail­ure to re-en­gi­neer and re­form col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing pro­ce­dures and agree­ments un­der the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act (IRA) will re­sult in con­tin­ued tur­bu­lence with­in the pub­lic sec­tor. That is the view of in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and em­ploy­ment law spe­cial­ist, Lennox Mar­celle. He said the pub­lic sec­tor con­tin­ued to ne­go­ti­ate in a sys­tem that was in need of dras­tic changes.

Late­ly, pub­lic sec­tor ne­go­ti­at­ing had be­come prob­lem­at­ic, he said. The IRA of 1972 re­placed the In­dus­tri­al Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Act of 1965. Un­der the IRA, an In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee was set up to ad­vise the Min­is­ter of Labour on mat­ters af­fect­ing labour re­la­tions and to make rec­om­men­da­tions for amend­ments to the act as the com­mit­tee may see nec­es­sary.

In March, Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod pre­sent­ed in­stru­ments of ap­point­ments to the com­mit­tee which is head­ed by Mar­celle. Mar­celle said the com­mit­tee has start­ed to ex­plore var­i­ous el­e­ments of the act such as the In­dus­tri­al Court, op­er­a­tions of the Recog­ni­tion Board and the Eco­nom­ic and In­dus­tri­al Re­search Unit, terms and con­di­tions of judges and de­f­i­n­i­tion of a work­er.

He said: "One of the first steps of this com­mit­tee is to look at the op­er­a­tions of the sys­tem...what in the sys­tem needs to be ad­dressed or fixed to make it more ef­fi­cient and ef­fec­tive." He said the com­mit­tee has been brain­storm­ing and that there was need for a re­vi­sion of the act.

Mar­celle said he was con­cerned about ex­pired col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ments which were on the ne­go­ti­at­ing ta­ble in 2012. He said: "I feel strong­ly about col­lec­tive agree­ments. I be­lieve that we should not be ne­go­ti­at­ing in 2012, agree­ments that have ex­pired in 2010."

As he spoke in an in­ter­view at his of­fice, Hud­son-Phillips Build­ing, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain on Fri­day, work­ers tak­ing part in a protest shout­ed: "We want we mon­ey, now." Mar­celle said: "If they (pub­lic sec­tor) don't change their way of ne­go­ti­at­ing, then tur­bu­lence will con­tin­ue," he said. He said, how­ev­er, a large por­tion of the pri­vate sec­tor has ma­tured in its un­der­stand­ing of labour re­la­tions.

'Work' has changed

Mar­celle said the terms "work" and "work­er" need­ed to be re­de­fined since there were now new con­cepts. He said the or­gan­i­sa­tion of the work­place had al­so changed. He said: "Work and the or­gan­i­sa­tion of the work­place have changed. In the last three or four decades, that con­cept of stan­dard em­ploy­ment has changed.

"Peo­ple have tem­po­rary work; there is flex­i­bil­i­ty at the work­place in terms of time and the dif­fer­ent jobs that peo­ple do, con­tract labour, work­ing for a few hours on con­tract...so there is a whole dif­fer­ent con­cept of what work is." The con­cern now, was whether the IRA was pro­tect­ing work­ers as it in­tend­ed to do, he said.

Mar­celle said the term "work­er" need­ed to be re­de­fined or broad­ened. He said a work­er can­not go to the court un­less rep­re­sent­ed by a trade union and had to fall with­in the de­f­i­n­i­tion of work­er.

Col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing is com­pro­mise

One of the stum­bling blocks to prop­er ne­go­ti­a­tion of a col­lec­tive agree­ment in T&T was in­for­ma­tion, Mar­celle said. He asked: "Do we share in­for­ma­tion that will be use­ful and help­ful? "There are mod­els across the world where the union and the em­ploy­er build a re­la­tion­ship of trust. "It is more than just the fig­ures. They state their ob­jec­tives and col­lab­o­rate on mov­ing for­ward."

He said the Gov­ern­ment has to bal­ance its role as man­ag­er of the econ­o­my with role of em­ploy­er. He said ne­go­ti­at­ing in the pub­lic sec­tor has be­come prob­lem­at­ic and there was a need to com­pro­mise. Asked whether the im­posed five per cent wage of­fer by the Gov­ern­ment was a rea­son, he said it was the process in which it was done.

Mar­celle said: "Trade unions should come to the ta­ble with a va­ri­ety of op­tions. "One can­not have this no­tion that I would not com­pro­mise. In bar­gain­ing there is com­pro­mise." He said the bar­gain­ing process­es had to be re-en­gi­neered with the in­tro­duc­tion of new ideas, or else, there will con­tin­ue to be a case of "ne­go­ti­a­tion in­to ne­go­ti­a­tion." He rec­om­mend­ed that a time frame for set­tling ne­go­ti­a­tions be in­clud­ed in the Act.

He said: "We need to re-en­gi­neer the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process and bring new think­ing and if not, em­ploy­ers and trade unions will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate in an old sys­tem. "There has to be a cer­tain time frame to sub­mit pro­pos­als, a time for a re­ply by em­ploy­er and who­ev­er de­lays and there is no set­tle­ment by a cer­tain date, then what is on the ta­ble will have to be ac­cept­ed or send it to the court to make a de­ter­mi­na­tion."