Raphael John-Lall

Chair­man of the Em­ploy­ers’ Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion (ECA) Ke­ston Nan­coo is call­ing on stake­hold­ers to move with “ur­gency” to re­form the na­tion’s labour laws, giv­en rapid changes in the world of busi­ness and the work­place.

“It is no se­cret that this whole ques­tion of labour leg­is­la­tion and re­form has been in the pub­lic do­main for quite some time. In 2016, the ECA sub­mit­ted a po­si­tion pa­per which was the sub­ject of dis­cus­sion at the Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil (NTAC) and we were able to come up with a doc­u­ment which the com­mit­tee coun­cil be­lieved was in the best in­ter­est go­ing for­ward in deal­ing with labour law re­form.

“The last thing was that these pro­pos­als were sent to Cab­i­net. With NTAC not be­ing in place, we are not aware of where in the process this is stuck. The lev­el of ur­gency re­al­ly needs some fire.”

Nan­coo spoke last week Tues­day at a vir­tu­al fo­rum host­ed by the Cipri­ani Col­lege of Labour and Co-op­er­a­tive Stud­ies on re­form­ing labour laws in T&T.

It was part of a month-long set of ac­tiv­i­ties in June to com­mem­o­rate Labour Day, which was cel­e­brat­ed on June 19.

Nan­coo iden­ti­fied work­ers in the in­for­mal sec­tor as one of the main groups that need leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect their rights.

“Con­tri­bu­tion to the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance, pay­ment of tax­es, those are the con­ver­sa­tions that we must have, it is those that work in that in­for­mal sec­tor. Look at what hap­pened dur­ing the COVID pan­dem­ic, when peo­ple thought that they would have re­ceived their lit­tle $50 or $60 from the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance and when they checked, em­ploy­ers were not pay­ing. That is why the leg­isla­tive frame­work is im­por­tant.”

He al­so said tech­nolo­gies, such as ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, are im­pact­ing the work­place and the econ­o­my. This rais­es the is­sue of how will a “work­er” be de­fined un­der this new par­a­digm.

Nan­coo added that labour re­form is im­por­tant as it has an im­pact on com­pa­nies and the chang­ing world of work.

“When you look at it, there are so many ten­ta­cles that labour re­form finds it­self. We are liv­ing in a time where there are so many chal­lenges with our youths, and when you look at the world of work and the job mar­ket, labour leg­is­la­tion and leg­isla­tive re­form, peo­ple may think that it’s not con­nect­ed but there are con­nec­tions in terms of get­ting peo­ple off the streets. There is the in­tro­duc­tion of re­mote work. That re­quires se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion as it’s be­com­ing a way of life. We still don’t have the lev­el of clar­i­ty from the em­ploy­ers’ per­spec­tive, we are still not very clear as to what’s the next step. There needs to be a re­fo­cus­ing on labour leg­is­la­tion. Let’s stop just talk­ing about it.”

He ac­knowl­edged that tri­par­tite dis­cus­sion is im­por­tant and the Gov­ern­ment, labour and busi­ness must all come to­geth­er to dis­cuss not on­ly labour laws but oth­er is­sues in the econ­o­my.

“Let’s rekin­dle that fire of hope. It is about what is in the na­tion­al in­ter­est.”

Mod­ernising labour leg­is­la­tion

Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) Michael An­nisette, who al­so spoke at the fo­rum, said labour laws and the labour mar­ket are crit­i­cal to the de­vel­op­ment of the econ­o­my.

“The fo­cus is on the adapt­abil­i­ty of the labour mar­ket and al­so our cul­ture and his­to­ry as a re­gion. I am speak­ing not about T&T now, but I am speak­ing as a Caribbean man. We are a very small re­gion and the ques­tion of the co­he­sion of the re­gion is im­por­tant as it re­lates to the labour mar­ket.”

He gave a his­tor­i­cal view of labour leg­is­la­tion in T&T with the In­dus­tri­al Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Act (ISA) be­ing en­act­ed in 1965.

This was fol­lowed by the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act (IRA) of 1972 which re­pealed and re­placed the ISA.

Based on pieces of leg­is­la­tion that are over 50 years old, he said labour laws need­ed to be up­dat­ed to meet the needs of the con­tem­po­rary world of work.

“There are many changes, giv­en the new dy­nam­ics of the world of work and we are mov­ing to­wards a dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion of work and there­fore our adapt­abil­i­ty is re­quired.”

He said in 2017 the labour move­ment gave rec­om­men­da­tions on labour law re­form and it was sub­mit­ted to Cab­i­net.

“We are now in 2023 and those rec­om­men­da­tions for the changes in labour leg­is­la­tion have not seen day­light.”

Like Nan­coo, he said that there should be an “ur­gent” thrust from all stake­hold­ers to en­sure that the work to be­gin to re­form decades old labour leg­is­la­tion be­gins.

“This must be tri­par­tite par­tic­i­pa­tion in the process and it can­not be mere win­dow dress­ing as each day we are forced to face the re­al­i­ties of the world of work. We can­not as a peo­ple choose to not recog­nise so­cial di­a­logue, so­cial jus­tice and labour leg­is­la­tion. In the ab­sence of that, T&T will suf­fer.”

An­nisette ques­tioned whether the Gov­ern­ment is se­ri­ous about re­form­ing labour leg­is­la­tion or any oth­er types of is­sues.

He said the labour move­ment had raised ques­tions about the fu­ture of state-owned oil com­pa­ny Petrotrin. The labour move­ment al­so brought up the im­por­tance of clos­ing off all out­stand­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions and they were all ig­nored by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance.

Gov­ern­ment eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy

An­nisette used the ex­am­ple of Bar­ba­dos of when Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley took of­fice that coun­try’s for­eign re­serves were low and it went to the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF). Mot­t­ley held stake­hold­er meet­ings with the en­tire coun­try, said An­nisette.

In Sep­tem­ber 2022, it was re­port­ed that Bar­ba­dos Gov­ern­ment en­tered in­to an­oth­er IMF pro­gramme in an ef­fort to raise US$340 mil­lion in fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance.

An­nisette said that the IMF ad­vised Bar­ba­dos not to raise the min­i­mum wage be­cause it could not af­ford it and yet some stake­hold­ers ad­vised the Prime Min­is­ter to ig­nore the IMF and the min­i­mum wage was even­tu­al­ly raised.

He al­so said T&T is go­ing down an “eco­nom­ic precipice” which is hav­ing se­ri­ous neg­a­tive ef­fect on so­ci­ety.

He gave sta­tis­tics which show that 65 per cent of em­ploy­ees in the T&T’s state sec­tor are on con­tract labour and he con­trast­ed this with Bar­ba­dos where he said over 3,000 con­tract work­ers in the pub­lic sec­tor were reg­u­larised. He said giv­ing em­ploy­ees’ per­ma­nent sta­tus rais­es pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the work­place and in the econ­o­my in gen­er­al.

“The Gov­ern­ment is the biggest em­ploy­er in T&T and if the ex­am­ple of the Gov­ern­ment is to have em­ploy­ees work­ing for 10 years or 15 years with­in the Gov­ern­ment ser­vices here­in lies the un­der­pin­nings of the prob­lems in T&T. We al­so have a grow­ing and gal­lop­ing in­come and wage gap in the coun­try. We have a wealth gap in T&T that is fright­en­ing.”