Yesterday’s celebration of Labour Day presents a major opportunity for the central players in the T&T economy – private sector employers, Government, which is the country’s largest employer, and employees, some of whom are represented by trade unions – to rethink the role of workers in the country’s future.
The conditions, needs and aspirations of workers today are very different to June 19, 1937, when Grenada-born Tubal Uriah ‘Buzz’ Butler led hundreds of workers, most of whom were employed by oil companies, on what became a national strike, encompassing workers from sugar and cocoa estates, and employees of the docks and railways.
Eighty-six years ago, workers in Trinidad were striking for better wages and working conditions, in the context of a global economic depression and a country that was still under the colonial rule of the British, which meant limited opportunities for social mobility of the majority of the population.
By June 1973, when the first Labour Day was celebrated, the National Insurance Board had just been established (in December 1972). The 40-hour work week was introduced in January 1974 for public officers, as a result of a public service collective agreement.
Overtime pay for private sector workers, paid vacations, maternity and sick leave, pension plans to which both workers and employers contributed, as well medical plans followed, both as a result of the struggles of local trade unions and the international developments in industrial relations and the treatment of workers.
For T&T, the important international context of 1973, was that the first oil crisis began in October of that year. That Middle East-inspired “crisis” led to a quadrupling of the oil price in short order, which resulted in a dramatic reversal of the country’s economic fortunes.
The flood of oil dollars in the 1970s allowed the Government to introduce a raft of subsidies on education, healthcare, transportation, housing and utilities that led to an improvement in the standard of living of the population in the decades that followed.
Unfortunately, many workers take for granted the stark improvements in the quality of the life they lead in 2023, compared with 1973, and even more so 1937. Many are not aware of the tribulations and sacrifices of trade unionists, or the impact that the distribution policies of all the administrations since 1973 have had on their lives.
The local and international context of 2023 is also changing.
In T&T, trade unions have lost members as a result of the closure of the Petrotrin refinery in Pointe-a-Pierre in November 2018, the decision by Unilever Caribbean Ltd to stop manufacturing and production at its Champs Fleurs facility last July and majority State-owned TSTT’s retrenchment of workers last year.
After the mini windfall in 2022, the volatility of T&T’s energy revenues and the size of its sovereign debt constrain the ability of the Government to offer the double-digit wage increases that public service trade unions have been demanding. That means the 90,000-plus workers employed by the State have not enjoyed a wage increase since 2014 or 2015, resulting in a decline in their standard of living.
Internationally, the rise of Artificial Intelligence, contract-labour arrangements and the increasing prevalence of the gig economy are all changing the workplace of today.
These changes underscore Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s call, in his Labour Day message, for T&T to build a new labour management model, “which must include participation in employee stock ownership.” Reactivating the National Tripartite Advisory Council would also help.
