Do we dare to hope that the recent industrial settlements, first by the police association and now between the T&T Unified Teachers Association and the Chief Personnel Officer, are indication that goodwill has kicked in to avoid and if necessary break protracted industrial strife?
The key driver in the settlements has obviously been the movement from the five per cent gridlock which engendered a period of poor industrial relations, characterised by shutdowns, sickouts, demonstration and at times halted production in critical sectors of the economy and society.
There obviously has to be a review of the prevailing industrial negotiations strategy in which employer and trade unions start at unrealistically distant opposite ends, with neither side shifting for months, even years. It is a strategy that has not worked for either side; indeed, it has only increased antagonism.
It is difficult to fathom the logic of one group offering one per cent over three years while the other side is asking for 30 per cent, and both sides settling at ten per cent after four years of contention that affects the operations of the enterprise.
In the instance of teachers, police-indeed, almost all sections of the public service-the negotiations and contentions may soon resume for the next agreement and last another four years with all of the bad blood and mistrust developed during the previous protracted negotiating period. It is quite pointless, destructive and disruptive of the economy and society.
The TCL?issue, in which an already floundering company was further hamstrung by prolonged industrial action-an outright, 90-day strike-is the most extreme example of this shortsightedness. The company lost over $40 million more in the first quarter of this year than in 2011, and the strike had ripple effects throughout the economy. No one emerged a winner.
It is understandable that there will be contention between employers and trade unions bargaining hard for their members. One side is seeking to ensure that economic and financial gains are converted into long-term investment for the sustainability of the organisation; and the other is seeking to get the best deal for employees in the short to medium term.
What both sides should remember is that inevitably they have common interests, and the survival of both depends on productivity and the competitiveness of the product and service offered by the organisation, be it in the public or the private sector.
The evidence suggests there is need to formulate a new philosophical and strategic approach to industrial relations. Without it, long, antagonistic and protracted negotiations will continue to plague the country and inhibit economic advance and keep tensions in the society at boiling point.
The question is, how is this new approach to be conceived of and achieved in practical terms? For starters, the internationally proven model set out by the International Labour Organisation, and one that has proved successful in many countries of the world, is the tripartite approach to industrial relations.
Significantly, the tripartite approach is not merely focused on settling the next industrial agreement, but rather establishing a foundation for ongoing dialogue between employer and employee and their representatives.
The dialogue stretches into all aspects of the workplace and the needs of business operations to be productive, competitive and innovative in their capacity to succeed. Examination of the economic and social environment, including projecting into the future and what it holds for the economy, the examination of manpower and capital supplies, are part of that agenda for study.
In such a context, the lay of the industrial land for negotiations would have been understood, and the animosity and unrealistic demands of the past year might have been minimised, if not altogether avoided.