Balford HenryFOR THE past two years, we've been commenting on the failure of the Government to address labour reform. Seems like the chickens are just about coming home to roost.
In their spirit of consensus, former Ministers of Labour and Social Security, Portia Simpson Miller and Donald Buchanan, both seasoned trade unionists, for whatever reason failed to get the proposed amendments inserted into the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act (LRIDA). The simple reason is that they didn't have the courage to assert themselves in light of their ties to labour.
Now, if those two learned former labour leaders failed e to make the changes, it is not surprising that Dean Peart, also failed since he was more like a lame duck minister awaiting the 2002 general election than anything else.
But, with those elections behind us, the chickens are perking up their necks and it is left to Horace Dalley, who has had years of experience in the Ministry but, probably, a lack of proper guidance to make the right decisions.
The younger leadership of the trade union movement are convinced that the Ministry has become a mere conduit to the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT). In fact some of them are suggesting that it makes no sense going to the Ministry any more, because no conciliation is actually happening.
The trade unions have lost some of the older more experienced leaders: Michael Manley and E. Lloyd Taylor are dead; Hugh Shearer, although he still heads the JCTU and the BITU, and Hopeton Caven are on the verge of retirement; Reg Ennis seems to be watching over the disintegration of UTASP.
So we are entering a new era of trade unionism influenced not by bargaining in good faith, where labour negotiating started, nor even where the LRIDA takes precedence, as had been the case since the 1970s, but where a new paradigm has developed with the globalisation/WTO and best practices issues dominating.
The trade unionist today is no longer an elementary school graduate powered by a strong commitment to the working class. He is a professional coming out of college.
Employers are looking for the brightest minds in industrial relations and personnel practices to handle their human resources departments.
In the circumstances, we need to take a new look at the industrial relations mechanism at all levels - local, conciliatory and arbitrational. Hence the need for what we have come to know as labour market reforms, which are supposed to provide the mechanism for effective industrial relations practice.
But, imagine that from 1995 we had the foresight to see that this was necessary and the Government formed a committee to review the country's labour laws and practices. A team headed by the very qualified Professor George Eaton and including in its membership people like lawyer Robert Baugh; general secretary of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU), Lloyd Goodleigh; then permanent secretary in the Ministry of Labour, Anthony Irons; then president of the Jamaica Employers' Federation, Dr. George Phillip; Marva Phillips, a tutor of Trade Union Education at the UWI School of Continuing Studies; chairman of the Institute of Management and Production (IMP), Dr. Neville Ying; and Professor Alvin Wint.
The naming of the team followed indications from both Prime Minister P.J. Paterson and then Labour Minister Portia Simpson that the labour reform was needed urgently. They were given Terms of Reference with which to carry out their work.
Among their tasks were to review the process of labour negotiations and the administration of contracts in both the private and public sectors, and to suggest ways to make them more effective.
The committee was also expected to review labour laws and regulations with respect to health and work safety, and to study the level of safety awareness in schools, as well as the skill and education levels of the work force and the adoption of technologies to improve productivity. Hearings began in July, 1995.
But, three Ministers later, we are still saying the same things.
We need these labour reform measures to create an environment for a flexible working hours policy. We need them to deal with the policy of performance pay being pushed by the Prime Minister. We need them to protect contract workers, especially people like security guards, in an era when management is opting more and more for contractual employment. We need them to protect the sector from raids on unions by competing unions. We need them to address the future of the Industrial Disputes Tribunal(IDT) and the conciliatory arm of the Ministry of Labour and their ability to deal with disputes.
The fact is that, if we are to position ourselves to fully exploit whatever benefits globalisation will offer us after 2005, we will need to address matters like these. But, there is an election again this year and so the matters have again been put on hold pending its outcome.
In the meantime, we have seen some developments in labour which threaten the fragile peace we have had for the past two decades, breaches of Orders of the IDT and court injunctions, as well as the law itself in terms of the failure to honour the amendment putting contract workers on the same level as permanently employed workers, such as security guards and the inability of non-unionised persons to have access to the IDT.
Is this the environment in which we will approach the globalise era? Remember we had the vision of seeing the need for these reforms from 1995! The question is, what has gone wrong since?
Balford Henry is News Editor
at the Gleaner.
