Among the nu­mer­ous im­por­tant pub­lic af­fairs side­bars ac­com­pa­ny­ing T&T’s cur­rent po­lit­i­cal tran­si­tion is or­gan­ised labour’s strug­gle for con­tin­ued rel­e­vance be­yond de­clin­ing in­stances in which col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing ex­ists.

For ex­am­ple, much has been said, al­most de­ri­sive­ly, about in­volve­ment of a few lead­ing ac­tivists in the elec­tion cam­paign. This came with lit­tle ac­knowl­edge­ment of the fact that among the prin­ci­pal fea­tures of ear­ly po­lit­i­cal par­ty de­vel­op­ment were ag­i­ta­tions led by or­gan­ised labour. In a sense, labour birthed our ear­ly pol­i­tics.

The labour strug­gle has al­ways been “po­lit­i­cal” in na­ture and has ha­bit­u­al­ly been ex­pressed in terms of na­tion­al pow­er dy­nam­ics.

The main ac­tors in the ear­ly years al­so played an un­de­ni­able agen­da-set­ting role in the key eco­nom­ic sec­tors of oil and sug­ar and in­tro­duced ear­ly no­tions of so­cial jus­tice.

Over the years, though, the fram­ing of “labour” dis­cus­sions has changed to rep­re­sent a gen­er­al move away from recog­ni­tion of the sec­tor as fo­cal points of pow­er and in­flu­ence.

There is now much clos­er align­ment with trans­for­ma­tive, ame­lio­ra­tive mea­sures to ad­dress a steady de­cline in trade union rep­re­sen­ta­tion, in­sti­tu­tion­al weak­ness, in­co­her­ence, and de­clin­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty and in­flu­ence in key na­tion­al ar­eas.

Im­por­tant dis­cus­sions on the chang­ing world of work, dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion, and the terms of ref­er­ence for a changed so­cial com­pact are all ab­sent from their rou­tine dis­cours­es, ex­cept in fits and starts large­ly arranged by oth­ers.

All this as one op­ti­mistic es­ti­mate is that no more than 25 per cent of all em­ployed peo­ple are mem­bers of a trade union in T&T. “Labour” now finds shared, com­fort­able min­is­te­r­i­al space along­side ini­tia­tives in “Small and Mi­cro En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment” as if to sig­nal prox­i­mate, avail­able res­cue op­por­tu­ni­ties.

In the process, rigid in­sis­tence on a labour en­vi­ron­ment char­ac­terised by the prin­ci­ple of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing, more as­sured so­cial pro­tec­tions, and the ex­is­tence of (or as­pi­ra­tions for) a durable so­cial com­pact have be­come dis­ap­pear­ing at­trib­ut­es.

Mul­ti­par­tism, as a com­mu­nion of equals, is al­so fad­ing from view as a goal em­braced by all.

While he was in T&T in April, en route to the 13th ILO Meet­ing of Caribbean Labour Min­is­ters in Guyana, I at­tempt­ed to se­cure an in­ter­view with ILO Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al Gilbert F Houng­bo to get a glob­al fix on the state of trade union­ism and the ex­tent to which na­tion­al and re­gion­al re­al­i­ties were a re­flec­tion of what is hap­pen­ing else­where.

When I was un­able to achieve this, the ILO Caribbean Of­fice lo­cat­ed in Port-of-Spain kind­ly sup­plied re­spons­es to my sev­er­al con­cerns.

I had ar­gued, in my line of ques­tion­ing, that labour unions in the Caribbean are shrink­ing in size and in­flu­ence, di­min­ish­ing the ef­fec­tive­ness of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing and push­ing labour lead­ers to­ward (di­rect) po­lit­i­cal ac­tivism.

Is this shift, I won­dered, a cause for con­cern giv­en the State’s role as dom­i­nant em­ploy­er in many Caribbean na­tions?

The ILO re­sponse was that the de­cline in union mem­ber­ship and in­flu­ence is, in fact, “a valid con­cern not on­ly in the Caribbean but glob­al­ly”.

“While po­lit­i­cal ac­tivism can be a strate­gic re­sponse,” the ILO re­sponse went, “it should not re­place unions’ core func­tion of rep­re­sent­ing work­ers through so­cial di­a­logue, in­clud­ing col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing.”

There is some re­cent ILO re­search on the fu­ture of trade unions, which the in­sti­tu­tion says points to an in­alien­able role for such or­gan­i­sa­tions “in strength­en­ing work­place rep­re­sen­ta­tion”.

“Trade unions must adapt,” the ILO re­spond­ed. “Po­lit­i­cal en­gage­ment can be part of this re­new­al, but on­ly if root­ed in work­ers’ re­al needs and backed by ef­forts to re­build union pow­er in the work­place.”

When we look around to­day in T&T and else­where in the Caribbean, there is rea­son­able cause to be con­cerned that amid pre­vail­ing de­cline, there is a jet­ti­son­ing of the means through which the labour sec­tor can re­cov­er rel­e­vance and in­flu­ence.

It does not ap­pear that a se­ri­ous sur­vival project is be­ing en­gaged. For in­stance, I have not seen any at­tempt to re­sume the pur­suit of or­gan­i­sa­tion­al tri­par­tism, in what­ev­er man­i­fes­ta­tion, in­clud­ing T&T’s long-aban­doned Na­tion­al Tri­par­tite Ad­vi­so­ry Coun­cil.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the con­tin­ued work of a unique, strong, in­de­pen­dent, and in­dige­nous In­dus­tri­al Court as an au­thor­i­ta­tive me­di­a­tor of in­dus­tri­al con­flict can­not be at­tend­ed to in a cav­a­lier, reck­less man­ner as is cur­rent­ly the case.

The Em­ploy­ers Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion has been large­ly silent on much of this, and the state, as the sin­gle most im­por­tant em­ploy­er it­self, has per­haps en­joyed some ben­e­fits, in­clud­ing a meek pledge of po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance from work­ers’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the state sec­tor.

The over­all out­look for or­gan­ised labour is not at all en­cour­ag­ing. Are its lead­ers ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the pains of con­trac­tion? Is the un­fold­ing cri­sis on the agen­da for next week’s Labour Day ob­ser­vances?