Caribbean Con­gress of Labour gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette has wel­comed the de­ci­sion by Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Do­mini­ca and St Vin­cent to al­low full free move­ment among them­selves un­der Cari­com’s Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME), and called on all Cari­com states to ac­cel­er­ate ef­forts to­ward full CSME.

“We ex­tend our deep ap­pre­ci­a­tion to the four gov­ern­ments for their vi­sion­ary lead­er­ship. Their ex­am­ple reaf­firms that our Caribbean is stronger to­geth­er, and that in­te­gra­tion must re­main peo­ple-cen­tered, ground­ed in sol­i­dar­i­ty and the dig­ni­ty of work,” An­nisette said in a re­lease, not­ing that full free move­ment rights are not yet em­braced by all Cari­com Mem­ber States.

In wel­com­ing, the de­ci­sion by Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Do­mini­ca and St Vin­cent for to im­ple­ment full free move­ment among them­selves from Oc­to­ber 1, he added, “This pro­gres­sive step gives re­al mean­ing to the vi­sion of re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, uni­ty, and so­cial jus­tice em­bed­ded in the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas. It marks a defin­ing mo­ment in our jour­ney to­ward a tru­ly bor­der­less Caribbean, where cit­i­zens can move, work, and live freely across our re­gion.”

Urg­ing all mem­ber states to have full free move­ment to en­sure that no work­er and no na­tion is left be­hind, An­nisette, who is al­so gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of T&T (NATUC), said, “With a pop­u­la­tion of near­ly 20 mil­lion cit­i­zens and a di­as­po­ra of over six mil­lion, Cari­com pos­sess­es vast hu­man and cre­ative cap­i­tal. Yet, in­tra-re­gion­al mi­gra­tion re­mains lim­it­ed to spe­cif­ic skills cat­e­gories, pre­vent­ing many Caribbean work­ers from ful­ly con­tribut­ing to re­gion­al growth and de­vel­op­ment.”

He added, “The Caribbean stands at a cross­roads. The path to re­silience and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment de­mands uni­ty of pur­pose, shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and so­cial jus­tice. A strong Cari­com can­not rest on mar­ket forces alone, it must al­so up­hold the move­ment of peo­ple and the sol­i­dar­i­ty of its cit­i­zens.

“The CCL reaf­firms its com­mit­ment to work with Cari­com gov­ern­ments, the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at, the Cari­com Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­gan­i­sa­tion (CP­SO), and civ­il so­ci­ety to en­sure that free move­ment de­liv­ers tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits for work­ers and their fam­i­lies.” - Gail Alexan­der