Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

New­ly-ap­point­ed chair­man of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee Lennox Mar­celle says the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions sys­tem is in sham­bles "be­cause we did not take stock of our­selves in terms of the or­gan­ic growth." He said there was a break­down and that in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions can­not con­tin­ue to be ig­nored.

He was speak­ing at the launch of the com­mit­tee yes­ter­day at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain. Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod, who act­ed as Prime Min­is­ter for two days, pre­sent­ed Mar­celle and ten oth­ers with their in­stru­ments of ap­point­ments for a two-year pe­ri­od.

Mar­celle said: "We have not ad­dressed in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions mat­ters se­ri­ous­ly and if we speak of de­vel­op­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go and in fact, speak­ing of de­vel­op­ment any­where in the world, you must ad­dress the is­sues of in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions. "In­dus­tri­al re­la­tions is the foun­da­tion of the eco­nom­ic re­la­tion­ship whether we want to be­lieve it or not be­cause we have passed the stage of mas­ter and ser­vant, so if we want high pro­duc­tiv­i­ty we have to deal with the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions sys­tem."

Mar­celle, al­so a lawyer, said the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions sys­tem need­ed to be peace­ful with a pro­duc­tive and peo­ple-fo­cused econ­o­my. He said the com­mit­tee was now placed in a po­si­tion to ex­am­ine a num­ber of is­sues, not on­ly with the re­la­tion­ship be­tween em­ploy­er and trade union but the land­scape of the econ­o­my.

Mar­celle said the com­mit­tee was an in­te­gral and im­por­tant pro­vi­sion in the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act, Chap­ter 88:01. He said there were sev­er­al anom­alies in the Act. He said a 1974 pol­i­cy doc­u­ment stat­ed that the le­gal frame­work for any sys­tem of in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions must be kept un­der con­stant re­view in or­der to cater for its or­gan­ic growth. Mar­celle stat­ed that doc­u­ment stat­ed spe­cial pro­vi­sions were made for an In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee, which is tri­par­tite in com­po­si­tion.