Labour Minister Jennifer-Baptiste Primus has promised that no new labour legislation will be passed without stakeholder participation.
"I know consulting takes time and I am not very patient with things taking a long time. When I headed the Public Services Association (PSA), whatever action we took, there were always clear timelines to be met. I like to see the realization of plans," she told participants at a National Bipartite Meeting hosted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) at the Kapok Hotel, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.
Baptiste-Primus, who said she strongly believes in the concept of tripartite discussions, added: "I will be re-establishing the Tripartite Commission. All of us in this process will not always agree because there would be areas of very strong positions,."
She said the National Bipartite meeting which brings together the social partners in T&T facilitated by the ILO reflects the increasing requirements of the new global economy for building relationships.
"The 21st century has ushered in new technologies and new ways of doing business and the onus is on all of us to adapt and reinforce mechanisms for dialogue and collaboration," she said.
The minister also assured that in formulating plans, Government will include trade unions at early stages and not at the end of the process.
"Labour will play a pivotal role in the embryonic stages, not at the end stage.
My experience as the former leader of a trade union–that was always one issue that affected us–that Government would only consult with us at the end stage, then they would only rubber-stamp," she said.
Neil Derrick, vice chairman of the Employers' Consultative Association (ECA), said tripartisim is not new to T&T and the country has tried it before.
"We also had an attempt at social dialogue compact in 2000. Those exercises, however, have not really borne the fruits that we think they could," he said.