The whole coun­try, and our trade unions in par­tic­u­lar, mark a very im­por­tant day to­day—the an­niver­sary of the protests in 1937 that ef­fec­tive­ly led to the recog­ni­tion of the mod­ern trade union move­ment and, in the process, nudged Trinidad and To­ba­go fur­ther to­wards its own in­de­pen­dence.

The speech­es to­day will be all too fa­mil­iar, dom­i­nat­ed by vit­ri­ol against gov­ern­ment, busi­ness­es and re­viv­ing old and out­dat­ed class war ghosts out of synch with to­day’s world and its chal­lenges.

To counter that, here is what we imag­ine that per­haps more en­light­ened trade union lead­ers could be say­ing to their mem­bers in­stead:

Com­rades col­leagues,

To­day, we mark a very im­por­tant mile­stone in the labour move­ment’s and the coun­try’s his­to­ry, with a mo­ment to re­flect on the sac­ri­fices and hard-won gains made by our labour lead­ers back in 1937. We should nev­er for­get what they achieved.

But we must al­ways look at the past as a way of help­ing shape the fu­ture—and we have both a present and a fu­ture that look very, very dif­fer­ent from what our pre­de­ces­sors ex­pe­ri­enced decades ago.

From iso­lat­ed is­lands, weeks or even months away from the cap­i­tal of the Em­pire, very much able to con­tain both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive de­vel­op­ments by be­ing most­ly shel­tered from oth­er parts of the world, we now live in a glob­al vil­lage, with just hours, not even days, need­ed to reach an­oth­er con­ti­nent and no need at all to leave our homes to meet the world via the in­ter­net.

This trans­for­ma­tion has brought many ad­van­tages and gains, but it al­so changed the way we can and must work, and pro­duce both goods and ser­vices. In eco­nom­ic terms, we now com­pete not with neigh­bour­ing na­tions, but with the en­tire world. And, as a con­se­quence, it is much hard­er for us to shel­ter from chal­lenges that may arise from the oth­er side of the world.

The dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion that al­lows us to be con­nect­ed with the world al­so means the way we work is chang­ing be­yond recog­ni­tion. Yes, tech­nol­o­gy is mak­ing some roles and jobs re­dun­dant–as has been the case through­out his­to­ry–but it is al­so open­ing up new and ex­cit­ing job op­por­tu­ni­ties.

And glob­al op­por­tu­ni­ties, too. To­day, a Trin­bag­on­ian may well be able to be con­tract­ed for re­mote work from any­where else in the world, thus earn­ing a liv­ing and gen­er­at­ing much-need­ed for­eign cur­ren­cy for the coun­try with­out trav­el­ling thou­sands of miles to do so.

As trade unions, we must ac­cept that old con­cepts, like jobs for life, may not ap­ply any more, and that we must work close­ly with em­ploy­ers and ed­u­ca­tion pol­i­cy­mak­ers to en­sure that the next gen­er­a­tion of work­ers is as well pre­pared for the dig­i­tal world as pos­si­ble.

And that we all work to­geth­er to en­sure that we em­bed the con­cept of con­tin­u­ous learn­ing through­out our ca­reers as the best way to re­main pro­duc­tive and not be left be­hind as tech­nol­o­gy and con­di­tions change.

This al­so means that we need to find, to­geth­er with em­ploy­ers, the best pos­si­ble way to en­sure that our laws and poli­cies ac­cept and re­flect the more flex­i­ble ap­proach to work we see de­vel­op­ing to­day. Our laws—and our unions—over­reg­u­late work, even when work­ers them­selves would rather en­joy a more flex­i­ble way to live their lives.

We are very, very proud of the labour move­ment’s track record in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and we are sure we can re­main rel­e­vant and con­tribute to the coun­try’s pros­per­i­ty with­out de­pend­ing on the cur­rent labour re­la­tions le­gal frame­work.

We are propos­ing changes to the law, so that em­ploy­ees are free to de­cide whether they want to be rep­re­sent­ed by their recog­nised trade union or whether they would rather ne­go­ti­ate di­rect­ly with the em­ploy­ers. Af­ter all, our pre­de­ces­sors fought for more, not less free­dom for work­ers.

And we are go­ing one step fur­ther by propos­ing changes to the cur­rent rules that ef­fec­tive­ly give trade unions a near mo­nop­oly when it comes to tak­ing cas­es against em­ploy­ers to the In­dus­tri­al Court.

Like in many coun­tries around the world, in­di­vid­u­als ought to have the right to take their griev­ances di­rect­ly to the rel­e­vant em­ploy­ment tri­bunal, with the op­tion to be rep­re­sent­ed by a trade union should they so de­sire, giv­en that we be­lieve we are best placed to sup­port them.

Above all, it is time for us to ditch the ad­ver­sar­i­al na­ture of our in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions. This is help­ing no one, and the time is right for us to work to­geth­er if, as a na­tion, we are to suc­ceed in this dig­i­tal and high­ly in­ter­con­nect­ed world.

It doesn’t mean we will al­ways agree, and we will be pre­pared to con­sid­er in­dus­tri­al ac­tion should we feel di­a­logue is not tak­ing us in the right di­rec­tion. But we will al­ways give di­a­logue pri­or­i­ty, will be as prag­mat­ic as pos­si­ble and un­der­take nev­er to en­gage in friv­o­lous or ma­li­cious dis­putes.

Af­ter all, we must un­der­stand that not every job can be saved and that change is in­evitable (and, ac­tu­al­ly, ex­cit­ing). A mod­ern trade union looks ahead to fore­see chal­lenges their mem­bers may face, and then takes the nec­es­sary ac­tions to mit­i­gate against them.

This may mean ac­cept­ing tem­po­rary pay re­duc­tions when a busi­ness is fac­ing dif­fi­cult times, or work­ing with em­ploy­ers to up­skill the work­force ahead of tech­nol­o­gy or mar­ket changes.

The pan­dem­ic showed that union lead­ers and em­ploy­ers can and must work to­geth­er to sup­port, pro­tect and de­vel­op the work­force. But it al­so showed how im­por­tant it is for us, as a na­tion, to be on the front foot when it comes to pre­pared­ness and adapt­abil­i­ty.

We have been re­al­ly good at writ­ing about the proud his­to­ry of our trade union move­ment. It is now time to start writ­ing the his­to­ry of a new and bright fu­ture and with­out de­lay.

Thank you.

Maybe one day some­thing like this will be said and T&T will be in a much bet­ter place for that.

Hap­py Labour Day.