Raphael John-Lall

Crime has reached “cri­sis lev­els” in T&T, not on­ly af­fect­ing the gen­er­al busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment in a neg­a­tive way, but al­so im­pact­ing core in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions is­sues, ac­cord­ing to the Em­ploy­ers’ Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion (ECA).

The ECA, T&T’s largest em­ploy­er body, in a state­ment re­spond­ed to ques­tions from the Busi­ness Guardian, con­cern­ing chal­lenges that big busi­ness­es and em­ploy­ers face, as the coun­try cel­e­brates its an­nu­al Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions.

“One of the most ur­gent is­sues af­fect­ing in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and the wider busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment in 2025 is the es­ca­lat­ing crime sit­u­a­tion in T&T. Crime has reached cri­sis lev­els, pos­ing se­ri­ous threats not on­ly to pub­lic safe­ty but al­so to eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, en­ter­prise sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and labour mar­ket sta­bil­i­ty. Em­ploy­ers are re­port­ing in­creased in­ci­dents of theft, ex­tor­tion, van­dal­ism, and threats to staff and prop­er­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly among SMEs and re­tail busi­ness­es. The ris­ing cost of do­ing busi­ness is be­com­ing un­sus­tain­able, with some en­ter­pris­es be­ing forced to con­sid­er re­lo­cat­ing or down­siz­ing op­er­a­tions.”

The ECA, in its state­ment, al­so said that crime al­so neg­a­tive­ly af­fects labour force par­tic­i­pa­tion, es­pe­cial­ly among women and vul­ner­a­ble groups who may be un­will­ing or un­able to work non-stan­dard hours or trav­el to re­mote lo­ca­tions due to safe­ty con­cerns.

“It con­tributes to ab­sen­teeism, in­creased psy­cho­log­i­cal stress, and has the po­ten­tial to dis­cour­age youth from en­ter­ing the for­mal work­force. Be­yond the en­ter­prise lev­el, crime erodes in­vestor con­fi­dence, ac­cel­er­ates brain drain, and un­der­mines pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor de­vel­op­ment ef­forts. While wide­spread busi­ness clo­sures due to crime have not yet oc­curred, the threat is grow­ing, and ur­gent mul­ti-stake­hold­er in­ter­ven­tion is nec­es­sary. Em­ploy­ers have a crit­i­cal role to play and must be in­te­grat­ed in­to na­tion­al strate­gies for crime pre­ven­tion and vi­o­lence re­duc­tion.”

The ECA al­so not­ed that a sec­ond ma­jor is­sue in in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions is the per­sis­tent labour mar­ket im­bal­ance and widen­ing skills mis­match, which has been wors­ened by the out­ward mi­gra­tion of skilled pro­fes­sion­als, rapid tech­no­log­i­cal change and shift­ing in­dus­try de­mands.

“T&T’s labour mar­ket con­tin­ues to suf­fer from long-stand­ing struc­tur­al weak­ness­es that hin­der pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and in­no­va­tion. The on­go­ing brain drain, par­tic­u­lar­ly in crit­i­cal sec­tors such as health­care, ICT, and ed­u­ca­tion, is plac­ing enor­mous pres­sure on na­tion­al ser­vice de­liv­ery and eco­nom­ic com­pet­i­tive­ness. Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, em­ploy­ers are grap­pling with ris­ing re­cruit­ment and train­ing costs as the gap be­tween avail­able skills and busi­ness needs widens.”

The em­ploy­ers’ body al­so com­plained that there is a grow­ing dis­con­nect be­tween T&T’s ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing sys­tems and the re­al­i­ties of the job mar­ket.

“In ad­di­tion to tech­ni­cal and vo­ca­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions, em­ploy­ers are in­creas­ing­ly seek­ing com­pe­ten­cies such as dig­i­tal flu­en­cy, ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion, team­work, cus­tomer ser­vice and emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence. Ad­dress­ing this chal­lenge re­quires ur­gent cur­ricu­lum mod­erni­sa­tion and deep­er col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween in­dus­try and ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions in the de­sign and con­tin­u­ous up­dat­ing of learn­ing and de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dards. Strength­en­ing ap­pren­tice­ship and in­tern­ship sys­tems, par­tic­u­lar­ly in sec­tors poised for trans­for­ma­tion in the dig­i­tal econ­o­my, is al­so es­sen­tial.”

In ad­di­tion, the ECA said fu­ture-of-work skills such as Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI) lit­er­a­cy, da­ta analy­sis, green econ­o­my com­pe­ten­cies, and hu­man-cen­tric ca­pa­bil­i­ties must be in­te­grat­ed across all lev­els of main­stream and vo­ca­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion.

“As we tran­si­tion in­to an era shaped by ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and glob­al trans­for­ma­tion, tack­ling these struc­tur­al labour mar­ket de­fi­cien­cies must re­main a cen­tral pil­lar of our work­force de­vel­op­ment agen­da.”

Labour leg­is­la­tion

Both the trade union move­ment and em­ploy­ers have com­plained that there is an ur­gent need to up­date some of T&T’s ar­cha­ic labour laws that go back to the 1970s and be­fore.

The ECA al­so weighed in on the is­sue.

“The ECA has con­sis­tent­ly ad­vo­cat­ed for the ur­gent mod­erni­sa­tion of T&T’s labour leg­is­la­tion to re­flect con­tem­po­rary work re­al­i­ties. Much of the ex­ist­ing le­gal frame­work was de­vel­oped in the 1970s and 1980s and has not evolved to ac­com­mo­date non-stan­dard forms of work, hy­brid work mod­els, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion or the shift­ing na­ture of the em­ploy­er-em­ploy­ee re­la­tion­ship.

“As a re­sult, the sys­tem has be­come frag­ment­ed and out­dat­ed, cre­at­ing le­gal un­cer­tain­ty, in­creas­ing com­pli­ance bur­dens, and re­duc­ing ef­fi­cien­cy. Out­dat­ed thresh­olds and rigid le­gal pro­vi­sions act as a bar­ri­er to in­no­va­tion and for­mal­i­sa­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly among SMEs and mi­cro-en­ter­pris­es. More­over, the cost and com­plex­i­ty of com­pli­ance is con­tribut­ing to the grow­ing in­for­mal­i­ty in em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ships, which in turn un­der­mines na­tion­al so­cial and de­vel­op­ment goals.”

The ECA al­so said that among the most ur­gent leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ties is the amend­ment to the de­f­i­n­i­tion of “work­er” in the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act.

“This de­f­i­n­i­tion must be ex­pand­ed to re­flect the mod­ern, di­verse labour force and en­sure wider cov­er­age and pro­tec­tion un­der the law. The Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act (RS­BA) al­so re­quires a com­pre­hen­sive re­view. The Act cur­rent­ly fails to ad­dress job loss due to in­sol­ven­cy and lacks pro­vi­sions for tem­po­rary lay­offs and re-em­ploy­ment mech­a­nisms for re­trenched work­ers. Em­ploy­ers and work­ers alike need clear­er, more prac­ti­cal guide­lines for nav­i­gat­ing job sep­a­ra­tion in ways that are fair, time­ly, and eco­nom­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able.”

The em­ploy­ers’ body added that the Work­men’s Com­pen­sa­tion Act of 1960 is an­oth­er area re­quir­ing im­me­di­ate re­form, call­ing it “woe­ful­ly out­dat­ed.”

“It does not re­flect cur­rent med­ical costs that can ad­e­quate­ly pro­tect to­day’s work­ers. It must be sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­vised or even re­placed to pro­vide mean­ing­ful sup­port and cov­er­age.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly - the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health (OSH) frame­work must be up­dat­ed to in­clude men­tal health and psy­choso­cial risks, which are be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly preva­lent due to stress, burnout, and psy­cho­log­i­cal in­jury. The leg­is­la­tion must al­so take in­to ac­count cli­mate-re­lat­ed risks and the dis­tinct safe­ty con­cerns aris­ing from re­mote and hy­brid work en­vi­ron­ments.

“Labour law re­form must be ground­ed in the prin­ci­ples of tri­par­tism dri­ven by mean­ing­ful so­cial di­a­logue and built around le­gal clar­i­ty, fair­ness, and fu­ture-readi­ness. This in­cludes bal­anc­ing work­er pro­tec­tion with busi­ness flex­i­bil­i­ty, fos­ter­ing in­no­va­tion, and pro­mot­ing the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of en­ter­pris­es in a rapid­ly evolv­ing eco­nom­ic land­scape.”

Re­spon­si­ble part­ners

Over the years, the em­ploy­ers have been crit­i­cised by the trade union move­ment for “ex­ploit­ing” work­ers and not play­ing a con­struc­tive role in the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions en­vi­ron­ment.

The ECA de­fend­ed the role that em­ploy­ers have played in en­sur­ing that busi­ness­es and com­pa­nies con­tin­ue to op­er­ate suc­cess­ful­ly and make their con­tri­bu­tion.

“The ma­jor­i­ty of em­ploy­ers in the pri­vate sec­tor con­tin­ue to demon­strate their com­mit­ment to be­ing re­spon­si­ble and con­struc­tive part­ners in T&T’s in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions land­scape, de­spite the many eco­nom­ic and so­cial chal­lenges they face.

“Em­ploy­ers, in­clud­ing those who are mem­bers of the ECA, con­sis­tent­ly ho­n­our their le­gal oblig­a­tions, ac­tive­ly en­gage in col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process­es, and strive to im­prove their in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions prac­tices. High lev­els of par­tic­i­pa­tion in the ECA’s in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions train­ing pro­grammes are ev­i­dence of em­ploy­ers’ will­ing­ness to im­prove their un­der­stand­ing of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions prac­tices and to act in good faith.”

How­ev­er, the ECA ac­knowl­edge that oc­ca­sion­al laps­es oc­cur and they con­tin­ue to urge all em­ploy­ers to up­hold key in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions prin­ci­ples, in­clud­ing prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion of al­le­ga­tions, the fair-hear­ing rule, trans­paren­cy, and due process in all em­ploy­ment-re­lat­ed in­quiries.

“Our guid­ance to em­ploy­ers is al­ways fo­cused on, pro­vid­ing rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion which is fun­da­men­tal to main­tain­ing trust and fair­ness in the work­place. Most em­ploy­ers are mak­ing con­cert­ed ef­forts to up­hold de­cent work prin­ci­ples and fair labour prac­tices. The way for­ward must in­volve con­tin­ued ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing, con­struc­tive so­cial di­a­logue, and mu­tu­al re­spect among all stake­hold­ers, as we work to­geth­er to strength­en the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions en­vi­ron­ment in T&T.”