Raphael John-Lall

Hav­ing strong labour stan­dards should not be looked at as mak­ing busi­ness more cost­ly, but can ac­tu­al­ly make busi­ness­es and com­pa­nies more pro­duc­tive and na­tion­al economies more com­pet­i­tive, ac­cord­ing to pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court, Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix.

She added that adopt­ing in­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards can make economies more att­trac­tive to For­eign Di­rect In­vest­ment (FDI).

“In­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards are cru­cial for pro­mot­ing fair and de­cent work­ing con­di­tions glob­al­ly. More­over they pro­tect work­ers’ rights, en­sure eq­ui­table treat­ment and es­tab­lish a frame­work for eco­nom­ic and so­cial de­vel­op­ment. All coun­tries and work­places should em­brace these stan­dards some of which have been in place for more than a cen­tu­ry. In­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards have some­times been per­ceived as cost­ly and there­fore a hin­der­ance to eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. How­ev­er, a great body of re­search has in­di­cat­ed that com­pli­ance with in­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards is of­ten ac­com­pa­nied by an im­prove­ment in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and eco­nom­ic per­for­mance in or­gan­i­sa­tions and coun­tries,” she said.

Thomas-Fe­lix gave the fea­ture ad­dress two Tues­days ago vir­tu­al­ly at the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Com­mon­wealth Caribbean Bar As­so­ci­a­tions (OC­C­BA) Lec­ture Se­ries.

She gave ex­am­ples of labour stan­dards and how they can boost not on­ly busi­ness­es and com­pa­nies but al­so economies in gen­er­al.

“The min­i­mum wage stan­dards serve as a cru­cial tool for pro­mot­ing eco­nom­ic fair­ness by shar­ing a base­line in­come for work­ers. They con­tribute to re­duc­ing in­come in­equal­i­ty, im­prove liv­ing stan­dards and in­creased con­sumer spend­ing there­by stim­u­lat­ing the econ­o­my. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, min­i­mum wages can en­hance em­ploy­ee mo­ti­va­tion and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty while de­creas­ing re­liance on so­cial wel­fare pro­grammes.”

The next stan­dard she re­ferred to is oc­cu­pa­tion­al, health and safe­ty which she said pro­vides sev­er­al ad­van­tages to com­pa­nies.

“They in­clude work­ers from work­place haz­ards. The re­duc­tion of work­place ac­ci­dents, in­juries and ill­ness­es im­prove em­ploy­ee morale and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and a de­crease in health­care costs from both em­ploy­ers and so­ci­ety. These stan­dards en­sure a safe and healthy work­ing en­vi­ron­ment and en­hance over­all em­ploy­ee well­be­ing and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. They al­so con­tribute to long term ben­e­fits by min­imis­ing ab­sen­teeism and turnover and le­gal and fi­nan­cial con­se­quences as­so­ci­at­ed with work­place in­ci­dents.”

An­oth­er stan­dard she spoke about is so­cial pro­tec­tion.

“So­cial pro­tec­tion such as un­em­ploy­ment schemes and ac­tive labour mar­ket poli­cies can fa­cil­i­tate labour mar­ket flex­i­bil­i­ty. Work­time stan­dards and re­spect for equal­i­ty stan­dards can trans­late in­to greater sat­is­fac­tion, im­prove per­for­mance of work­ers and re­duce staff turnover.”

She added that free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion and col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing can lead to bet­ter labour/man­age­ment con­sul­ta­tion and co-op­er­a­tion there­by im­prov­ing work­ing con­di­tions, re­duc­ing cost­ly labour con­flicts and en­hanc­ing so­cial sta­bil­i­ty.

“Free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion and col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing al­so fos­ter bet­ter labour re­la­tions en­sur­ing that work­ers have a voice in de­ci­sions that af­fect their workng con­di­tions.”

She al­so said in­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards call for the cre­ation of in­sti­tu­tions and mech­a­nisms which can en­force labour rights in com­bi­na­tion with a set of de­fined rights and rules and func­tion­ing le­gal sys­tems can help to for­malise the econ­o­my and cre­ate a cli­mate of trust and or­der which is es­sen­tial for eco­nom­ic growth and de­vel­op­ment.

“The ben­e­fi­cial ef­fects of em­brac­ing in­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards are of­ten not un­no­ticed by for­eign in­vestors. Sev­er­al stud­ies have shown that in their cri­te­ria for choos­ing coun­tries in which to in­vest, for­eign in­vestors look at work­force qual­i­ty and po­lit­i­cal and so­cial sta­bil­i­ty above low labour costs. At the same time, there is lit­tle ev­i­dence that coun­tries that do not re­spect labour stan­dards are more com­pet­i­tive in the glob­al econ­o­my.”

She said at the ba­sic lev­el, eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment should in­clude the cre­ation of jobs and work­ing con­di­tions in which peo­ple can work in con­di­tions of free­dom, safe­ty and dig­ni­ty.

“We should al­ways re­mind our­selves that eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment un­der­tak­en for its own sake must im­prove the lives of hu­man be­ings. There­fore in­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards are there to en­sure that like the rest of the world, coun­tries in the re­gion re­main fo­cused on im­prov­ing the lives and dig­ni­ty of men and women.”

Fu­ture of work

Giv­en the rapid changes in the glob­al econ­o­my, Thomas-Fe­lix spoke about how she thinks the world of work will evolve in the fu­ture.

“If you were to ask what the fu­ture of work looks like in 2030 in keep­ing with the Unit­ed Na­tions’ Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals, I would say that I can­not give a def­i­nite an­swer. This is so be­cause of how very dy­nam­ic and volatile the world has be­come with rapid tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments, glob­al­i­sa­tion and so­ci­etal shifts. No one could have pre­dict­ed the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic or could we have pre­dict­ed the war be­tween Rus­sia and the Ukraine and the re­cent con­flict in Is­rael.”

She analysed the state of the strug­gling economies of the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca post COVID-19 in help­ing to un­der­stand how these fac­tors are shap­ing the world of work.

“The In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­ga­ni­za­tion’s (ILO) Man­age­ment Re­port on Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean 2023 not­ed that this re­gion is un­der­go­ing a slow and un­even re­cov­ery from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Strong in­fla­tion­ary pres­sures have been ob­served both in 2022 and 2023 re­gion­al­ly and glob­al­ly main­ly due to ris­ing en­er­gy and food prices. These fac­tors have led to high­er in­ter­est rates and ris­ing in­equal­i­ty. At the same time, the ILO warned that the slow re­cov­ery of re­gion­al em­ploy­ment rates are ac­com­pa­nied by greater in­for­mal­i­ty and an in­crease in the num­ber of work­ers in pover­ty.”

She al­so said that mi­gra­to­ry flows have im­pact­ed on the labour force de­mo­graph­ics in the re­gion.

“It is note­wor­thy that the re­gion in ad­di­tion to fac­ing the chal­lenges of the tran­si­tion is al­so ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a ma­jor mi­gra­tion cri­sis.”

She said hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple lack ac­cess to paid em­ploy­ment and even when em­ployed many lack ac­cess to so­cial pro­tec­tion and fun­da­men­tal rights at work.

Fi­nal­ly, she said that re­mote work will be one of the more promi­nent fea­tures of the fu­ture of work.

“So, as we look at the fu­ture of work, the work­ing land­scape is evolv­ing quick­ly with re­mote work be­com­ing a promi­nent change in re­cent times. As tech­nol­o­gy keeps ad­vanc­ing and bridg­ing gaps be­tween peo­ple, re­mote work is grow­ing more ap­peal­ing to both em­ploy­ees and em­ploy­ers. Re­mote work some­times re­ferred to as telecom­mut­ing or work-from-home, en­ables em­ploy­ees to car­ry out their work, their job re­spon­si­bil­i­ties from any lo­ca­tion with a sta­ble in­ter­net. This flex­i­ble work style is be­com­ing more preva­lent in the Caribbean and is re­shap­ing how peo­ple ap­proach their ca­reers. It has the po­ten­tial to trans­form the Caribbean job mar­ket cre­at­ing new av­enues for growth and progress.”