RAPHAEL JOHN LALL

Em­ploy­ers are to be part­ly blamed for the low pro­duc­tiv­i­ty lev­els in the coun­try says the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre's new pres­i­dent James Lam­bert.

He said the eco­nom­ic sys­tem is a com­plex one with dif­fer­ent sec­tors and play­ers and each one has to play its role at dif­fer­ent lev­els of the pro­duc­tion process to en­sure max­i­mum ef­fi­cien­cy.

"The Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) rep­re­sents many work­ers in the pri­vate sec­tor like Carib, Berg­er, Best­crete and work­ers from many more pri­vate com­pa­nies. Unions can­not be held cul­pa­ble for the low lev­els of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in this coun­try. The sys­tem cre­ates the prob­lem and then, to a large ex­tent, it is a man­age­r­i­al prob­lem. All ac­tors must take col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty."

Lam­bert said man­agers and own­ers of in­dus­try must take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as they play a big part in the pro­duc­tion and wealth cre­ation process.

"We hold the view that man­agers, su­per­vi­sors and the em­ploy­ers help cre­ate the prob­lem of low pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. They are not pro­duc­ing as they ought to be. In the pro­duc­tion process they are re­spon­si­ble for what goes on. In the col­lec­tive agree­ments, there are mech­a­nisms that give rise to pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. You would see hours of work on a time­ly ba­sis. There are cat­e­gories of work to be done on a task sys­tem and mea­sure­ment of what is a day's work. At every col­lec­tive agree­ment, you would see unions speak­ing about pro­duc­tiv­i­ty," he said.

He said it the job of man­age­ment to ex­e­cute the col­lec­tive agree­ments.

"If a dai­ly rat­ed work­er left work at 9 am, where are the su­per­vi­sors, what did they do?

"If a work­er has a task to com­plete, there are mea­sure­ments with­in the col­lec­tive agree­ment that en­sure the work is com­plet­ed as a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. The union is not sup­posed to be there to tell the work­er to do his job. That is for man­agers to do. The man­agers are the ones to im­ple­ment and ex­e­cute the col­lec­tive agree­ments, but it does not hap­pen," he said.

He gave a spe­cif­ic ex­am­ple of how bu­reau­cra­cy in the state sec­tor caus­es in­ef­fi­cien­cy and low pro­duc­tiv­i­ty on projects.

"In the pub­lic sec­tor, there must be the req­ui­si­tion for ma­te­ri­als and this must be signed by a CEO or su­per­in­ten­dent. Af­ter this is done, when they as­sem­ble the teams to do ex­ca­va­tion work for a 30-foot wall. When it is com­plet­ed they still must wait for the ma­te­r­i­al. The Gov­ern­ment has con­tracts with cer­tain deal­ers for ma­te­ri­als but, in some in­stances, when they go for ma­te­r­i­al there is none, then the req­ui­si­tion was not signed or the CEO was not there. Yet the pub­lic would see these teams of gov­ern­ment work­ers on the road wait­ing for ma­te­ri­als to con­struct the wall. But the ce­ment comes to­day and they have to wait an­oth­er day for the sand and a third day for the tools. It is a sys­temic prob­lem," he said.

To deal with this com­plex prob­lem, he said all the im­por­tant ac­tors in the sys­tem must have di­a­logue.

"We need a tri­par­tite arrange­ment where the unions, gov­ern­ment and busi­ness dis­cuss these is­sues. I am not cer­tain that the Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty Coun­cil is as ac­tive as it should be. I am ap­peal­ing to the Gov­ern­ment to do this in or­der to im­prove pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and for it to im­pact on eco­nom­ic growth.The coun­try will not be able to go for­ward as ag­gres­sive­ly as it would like if this tri­par­tite com­mit­tee does not come in­to fruition," he said.

Lam­bert, who is al­so pres­i­dent of NUGFW, spoke to the Guardian on Mon­day at NUGFW's head of­fice, Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain.

He was elect­ed last Sat­ur­day and will serve as Natuc's Pres­i­dent for the next two years. Lam­bert re­placed Michael An­nisette who is the Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers' Trade Union (SWW­TU).

Busi­ness re­la­tions

As Natuc's new pres­i­dent, Lam­bert wants to forge con­struc­tive part­ner­ships with the dif­fer­ent busi­ness and em­ploy­ers' as­so­ci­a­tions.

"I hap­pen to know the chair­man of the Em­ploy­ers' Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion (ECA). When he worked at Carib, we had a re­la­tion­ship with him, as NUGFW has col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing units there. I in­tend to write and meet him and have a work­ing re­la­tion­ship with him," he said.

Lam­bert said unions and busi­ness­es work­ing for dif­fer­ent ob­jec­tives will not ben­e­fit the eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment.

"The growth of the coun­try de­pends on how we op­er­ate. If we con­tin­ue to op­er­ate sep­a­rate­ly, as we are present­ly do­ing, it takes a longer pe­ri­od to meet the chal­lenge we face. The great­est in­vest­ment we can make is our hu­man re­sources. Unions work­ing with busi­ness­es are sup­posed to ben­e­fit peo­ple. We must for­mu­late plans and work to­geth­er," he said.

Labour leg­is­la­tion

He said one of the trade union move­ment's biggest con­cerns is the role of the chief per­son­nel of­fi­cer (CPO) in the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process with the State, the coun­try's biggest em­ploy­er.

"The CPO is still deemed to be the em­ploy­er but they are a hin­drance to col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing. The In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act (IRA) should be amend­ed in this re­gard so that col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing could be done by the re­spec­tive min­istries. The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) was un­der the CPO, but now they have a board. The Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) was un­der the CPO, but now they have their own au­ton­o­my. But we still have col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing for cen­tral and lo­cal gov­ern­ment un­der the CPO."

He called the CPO's of­fice clue­less.

"The CPO does not have a clue about what goes on in the work­place and yet they sit and ne­go­ti­ate work­ers' wages. I am not say­ing to dis­solve the of­fice of the CPO but some mech­a­nism must be put in place where those min­istries do their ne­go­ti­a­tions and then the CPO can serve as a co-or­di­na­tor."

Lam­bert al­so spoke about amend­ing leg­is­la­tion to have bar­gain­ing units so unions could be recog­nised more eas­i­ly.

"There is the Reg­is­tra­tion, Recog­ni­tion and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board (RRCB) of which trade unions are at a dis­ad­van­tage in gain­ing recog­ni­tion for any new bar­gain­ing unit they have ap­plied for. There is no eq­ui­ty be­tween em­ploy­ers and unions in ap­ply­ing. The em­ploy­er has the ad­van­tage as what is be­ing asked from the union is not be­ing asked by the em­ploy­er."

Natuc will be hav­ing a meet­ing with the Min­is­ter of Labour Er­rol McLeod soon.

"Right now there is an ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee that was formed by Min­istry of Labour rel­a­tive to those amend­ments. There are rep­re­sen­ta­tives of unions on the com­mit­tee. Natuc will write to the Min­is­ter of Labour con­cern­ing the RRCB and role of the CPO," he said.

Trade union uni­ty

Lam­bert be­lieves that trade union uni­ty is im­por­tant to help sup­port a peace­ful in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate.

"We must en­sure uni­ty among the lead­ers. It is the most dif­fi­cult thing to have. Natuc is the recog­nised fed­er­a­tion for trade unions by the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion (ILO). There are 15 trade unions in Natuc."

He said the con­cept of the Joint Trade Union lead­ers came about when the union move­ment sought uni­ty in 2010 to deal with the is­sue of gov­ern­ment giv­ing five per cent across the board to all pub­lic sec­tor unions.

"There is no need for the Joint Trade Union Move­ment as there is Natuc, the fed­er­a­tion, that ought to see af­ter the af­fil­i­ates. There is no need for af­fil­i­ates of Natuc to con­tin­ue to at­tend meet­ings of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment as Natuc is re­spon­si­ble for these mat­ters."

A re­la­tion­ship with the Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent trade unions (Fi­tun) is pos­si­ble.

"I am not rul­ing out hav­ing a re­la­tion­ship with them but it must be on com­mon ground."

Speak­ing about the march last Fri­day, he said unions must rep­re­sent the in­ter­est of work­ers but with­out ap­pear­ing to be po­lit­i­cal.

"Trade unions must not ap­pear to be an op­po­si­tion par­ty. Trade unions must deal with af­fairs of work­ers. Of course, we can make state­ments on na­tion­al is­sues."