GENE­VA–The Caribbean Em­ploy­ers Con­fed­er­a­tion (CEC) and the Caribbean Con­gress of Labour (CCL) signed a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing (MOU) to work to­geth­er to iden­ti­fy ar­eas where com­mon leg­isla­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry prin­ci­ples hav­ing re­gion­al ap­pli­ca­tion are es­sen­tial.

The MOU will al­so al­low for the two par­ties to co-op­er­ate on for­mu­lat­ing leg­is­la­tion as well as fa­cil­i­tat­ing the es­tab­lish­ment and op­er­a­tion of busi­ness and the free move­ment of labour with­in the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com).

They al­so agreed to up­hold and ad­vo­cate for the prin­ci­ples en­shrined in In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­ga­ni­za­tion (ILO) Con­ven­tions ad­dress­ing the elim­i­na­tion of child labour, forced labour and dis­crim­i­na­tion; and the right to free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion and to bar­gain col­lec­tive­ly.

The So­cial Chap­ter of the Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment en­tered in­to by the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU) and Caribbean Fo­rum (Car­i­fo­rum) coun­tries in 2008, refers to the oblig­a­tions of each mem­ber state to im­ple­ment the rights and prin­ci­ples in­her­ent in the eight Fun­da­men­tal Con­ven­tions of the ILO.

The MOU was signed at the ILO's Brus­sels Of­fice, which CEC and CCL of­fi­cials were vis­it­ing as part of a study tour to gain in­sight in­to so­cial di­a­logue mech­a­nisms with­in the Eu­ro­pean Union.

"We are de­light­ed to host the sig­na­ture of such an im­por­tant MOU. So­cial part­ners have a key role to play in strength­en­ing re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion process­es and it is just great to see that in the Caribbean, work­ers and em­ploy­ers' or­gan­i­sa­tions are com­mit­ted to work­ing to­geth­er on is­sues of ut­most im­por­tance for the fu­ture of the re­gion," said Claire Courteille, di­rec­tor, ILO-Brus­sels Of­fice.

"This could set an ex­am­ple for oth­er parts of the world," she added.

The study tour forms part of a larg­er project fund­ed by the Eu­ro­pean Union, ex­e­cut­ed by the ILO and im­ple­ment­ed by CEC and CCL to build their ca­pac­i­ty in or­der to con­tribute to the for­mu­la­tion of eco­nom­ic and so­cial poli­cies at a re­gion­al lev­el.

CEC and CCL rep­re­sen­ta­tives par­tic­i­pat­ing in the study tour come from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, the Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da, Haiti, Ja­maica and T&T. They are ac­com­pa­nied by Anne Knowles, Se­nior Spe­cial­ist, Em­ploy­ers' Ac­tiv­i­ties and Ms. Paula Robin­son, Se­nior Spe­cial­ist, Work­ers' Ac­tiv­i­ties from the ILO De­cent Work Team and Of­fice for the Caribbean.

"The Caribbean Con­gress of Labour is tru­ly pleased to be a part of this sig­nif­i­cant study tour. The op­por­tu­ni­ty to ob­serve and ex­pe­ri­ence the work­ings of so­cial di­a­logue in an­oth­er ju­ris­dic­tion will sure­ly go a long way in en­cour­ag­ing the Caribbean so­cial part­ners to sup­port and pro­mote an ef­fec­tive so­cial di­a­logue sys­tem in our re­gion.

"The Caribbean Con­gress of Labour is very con­fi­dent that these en­gage­ments with the so­cial part­ner or­gan­i­sa­tions in Brus­sels will sure­ly help to deep­en and strength­en the re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion move­ment. Sign­ing this MOU with CEC on the leg­isla­tive agen­da marks an im­por­tant mile­stone in our co­op­er­a­tion," said CCL pres­i­dent David Mas­si­ah.

CEC pres­i­dent, Wayne Chen said the Caribbean Em­ploy­ers Con­fed­er­a­tion (CEC) notes this his­toric MOU that her­alds a new lev­el of co-op­er­a­tion be­tween busi­ness and labour in the Caribbean that will en­hance busi­ness sus­tain­abil­i­ty, in­vest­ment and job cre­ation.

"We now urge our na­tion­al gov­ern­ments to move ex­pe­di­tious­ly to im­ple­ment the ap­pro­pri­ate laws and reg­u­la­tions that will en­hance re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment," he added. (CMC)