The 21st cen­tu­ry de­mands a new type of labour leader, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has said.

Row­ley made the state­ment in his Labour Day mes­sage to the na­tion as he out­lined some of the chal­lenges faced by work­ers in the 21st cen­tu­ry, while al­so pay­ing homage to the labour lead­ers of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

“Labour Day should not on­ly be a cel­e­bra­to­ry oc­ca­sion for work­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go but a time when every cit­i­zen should pause and re­flect on the past strug­gles of the Labour Move­ment. We need to un­der­stand the present na­ture of work in Trinidad and To­ba­go, then, in a broad­er con­text, at­tempt to en­vi­sion and re­spond to the coun­try’s chal­lenges in the 21st cen­tu­ry,” Row­ley stat­ed.

He then out­lined some of the “com­plex chal­lenges” work­ers are now faced with.

“To­day, tech­no­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ments are pre­sent­ing com­plex chal­lenges, not on­ly to tra­di­tion­al work­ing con­di­tions but to the na­ture of so­ci­eties world­wide,” Row­ley stat­ed.

“For in­stance, biotech­nol­o­gy is be­gin­ning to en­ter our in­ner lives—our emo­tions, thoughts, and choic­es. It is an­tic­i­pat­ed that to­geth­er, in­fotech and biotech will cre­ate un­prece­dent­ed up­heavals in so­ci­ety,” he said.

Row­ley said be­cause of these chal­lenges work­ers will have to con­stant­ly re-train and re-in­vent them­selves in or­der to re­main rel­e­vant.

“For the work­er in the 21st cen­tu­ry, new jobs will un­com­pro­mis­ing­ly de­mand a high­er lev­el of ex­per­tise and in­ge­nu­ity, there­by, pos­ing prob­lems for those ex­ist­ing, among us who are un­em­ployed and un­skilled,” Row­ley stat­ed.

“The cen­tu­ry is de­mand­ing that work­ers con­stant­ly re-train, and fre­quent­ly re-in­vent them­selves, not once but sev­er­al times dur­ing their pro­gres­sive work lives,” he stat­ed.

Row­ley stat­ed be­cause work­ers will be faced with these new chal­lenges, the labour move­ment will al­so re­quire more pro­gres­sive think­ing lead­ers.

“These new chal­lenges are now de­mand­ing that the lead­ers in the labour move­ment re-think their tra­di­tion­al po­si­tions and per­spec­tives. The 21st cen­tu­ry, in short, is de­mand­ing not on­ly a new qual­i­ty work­er but al­so a new kind of labour lead­er­ship,” he stat­ed.

“I am con­fi­dent that as a peo­ple we have the met­tle to rise to the oc­ca­sion to make our op­por­tu­ni­ties and out­comes bet­ter but we have to work to­geth­er to­wards the com­mon goal of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment based on shared sac­ri­fices for shared ben­e­fits,” he stat­ed.

Row­ley said his Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to work to “fur­ther im­prove the con­di­tions of work­ers, and the en­hance­ment of their con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment, and re­tire­ment ben­e­fits.”