Joel Julien

joel.julien@guardian.co.tt

Strength­en­ing so­cial di­a­logue be­tween em­ploy­ers’ and work­ers’ or­gan­i­sa­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go to build more re­silient labour mar­kets dam­aged by COVID-19 was the key com­mit­ment made dur­ing a bi-par­tite di­a­logue host­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­ga­ni­za­tion (ILO) Of­fice for the Caribbean.

Dur­ing the vir­tu­al event, high-lev­el rep­re­sen­ta­tives from em­ploy­ers’ and work­ers’ groups ex­pressed their sol­i­dar­i­ty to find sus­tain­able so­lu­tions to the many com­plex so­cio-eco­nom­ic chal­lenges faced by busi­ness­es and em­ploy­ees as a re­sult of the glob­al health pan­dem­ic.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, the sit­u­a­tion has meant sig­nif­i­cant loss­es suf­fered by many eco­nom­ic sec­tors, lead­ing to lay­offs and busi­ness clo­sures. Some of the hard­est-hit sec­tors in­clude oil and gas, con­struc­tion, tourism and hos­pi­tal­i­ty, civ­il avi­a­tion, re­tail, trade, man­u­fac­tur­ing and en­ter­tain­ment.

The meet­ing was part of the ILO Of­fice for the Caribbean’s on­go­ing ef­forts to en­gage con­stituents in so­cial di­a­logue to ex­plore dif­fer­ent ap­proach­es to ad­dress the cri­sis. It pro­vid­ed a fo­rum for the Em­ploy­ers’ Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion (ECA), the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NATUC) and the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) to dis­cuss the in­ter­con­nect­ed im­pacts on the econ­o­my and work­force, as well as share ideas for de­vel­op­ing a roadmap for a sus­tain­able re­cov­ery.

“Em­ploy­ers’ and work­ers’ or­gan­i­sa­tions have a key part to play in the de­sign and im­ple­men­ta­tion of pub­lic sup­port mea­sures for the sec­tors most di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by the pan­dem­ic. They can en­sure that mea­sures to pro­tect the liveli­hoods of work­ers and en­ter­pris­es are im­ple­ment­ed ef­fec­tive­ly and are tar­get­ed at those most in need,” said Den­nis Zu­lu, Di­rec­tor of the ILO De­cent Work Team and Of­fice for the Caribbean, dur­ing his open­ing re­marks.

“This is a wa­ter­shed mo­ment if there ever was one. As so­cial part­ners, we must there­fore be re­mind­ed of a prin­ci­ple that I know my com­rades from the trade union move­ment will un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate, and that is, ‘there is pow­er in com­mu­ni­ty and pow­er in agree­ment.’ In this re­gard, we must com­mit to putting aside our dif­fer­ences and plumb the depths of what we re­al­ly be­lieve about one an­oth­er, about Trinidad and To­ba­go, and about the val­ue of co­op­er­a­tion and di­a­logue,” said Ke­ston Nan­coo, Chair­man of the Em­ploy­ers’ Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion (ECA) of Trinidad and To­ba­go, as he ad­dressed meet­ing par­tic­i­pants.

Par­tic­i­pants high­light­ed that the pan­dem­ic has wors­ened al­ready ex­ist­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic dis­par­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly for the eco­nom­i­cal­ly dis­ad­van­taged who are of­ten em­ployed in the in­for­mal econ­o­my with­out so­cial pro­tec­tion.

“We must rec­og­nize that the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has trig­gered the sharpest and deep­est eco­nom­ic con­trac­tion in the his­to­ry of cap­i­tal­ism. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, we can­not for­get that the pan­dem­ic has ex­ac­er­bat­ed ex­ist­ing struc­tur­al prob­lems. It has ex­posed the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the eco­nom­ic frame­work in terms of the deep so­cial and eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ties – the old nor­mal, which we haven’t even rec­on­ciled,” ex­plained Ozzy War­wick, Gen­er­al-Sec­re­tary of the JTUM.

The im­por­tance of greater col­lec­tivism was al­so rec­og­nized to go be­yond tra­di­tion­al mea­sures and mit­i­gate the ef­fects of COVID-19 so that gov­ern­ment, work­ers and em­ploy­ers can build back bet­ter for an ef­fec­tive re­cov­ery.

“Job growth and eco­nom­ic growth are the pil­lars to get out of this par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tion. We need to find mean­ing­ful ways in or­der to keep the econ­o­my afloat. The tra­di­tion­al way of send­ing work­ers home can­not be and must not be the an­swer” said Michael An­nisette, Gen­er­al-Sec­re­tary of NATUC. “The tri­par­tite ap­proach is need­ed more now than ever. Cre­ativ­i­ty, in­no­va­tion and think­ing out of the box are ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary.”