By NATALIE BRIGGS

If nothing else, the plight of the Chinese worker in Trinidad today stands as a cautionary tale to his local counterpart who, if it ever comes to that, will not have the option of demanding to be returned to more congenial conditions at home.
As the local worker becomes sandwiched between Faster and Cheaper, these two monoliths of neo-liberal economic policy, he finds that his hours and duties have lengthened with a simultaneous shortening of wages, permanence and benefits. This new worker is a creature of the Washington Consensus, a worldwide attempt to reduce the impact that labour agitation has on free market forces, the bitter pill governments and private enterprise of developing countries are left to swallow as they cut back expenditure to survive in a global system run by the market.
The results aren’t pretty. Increasingly it seems that local labour institutions and even the movement itself are under attack. Government is moving to place the Cipriani Labour College under the aegis of University of Trinidad and Tobago; PTSC and TSTT have gone to the Industrial Court in an attempt to de-certify the recognised bargaining bodies for workers, the Transport and Industrial Workers and Communication Workers Unions. National union membership hovers somewhere around 20 percent as employees no longer see the benefit of joining a trade union and are further discouraged from accessing them through employers’ subtle threats to their jobs. What is worse is that the current incarnation of the labour movement appears unable to stop the onslaught.
Indeed as I glanced around the Cipriani Labour College’s auditorium for the opening night of its 43rd anniversary celebrations, this opinion seems to be confirmed. The night’s panel played before a steadily diminishing audience of FITUN regulars, college staff and students. As they preached to this congregation of the converted, the panel, consisting of labour powerhouses, FITUN’s David Abdulah, the OWTU’s Ancel Roget, All Sugar and General’s Rudy Indarsingh and CWU president Joseph Remy summed up the problems plaguing the movement. The most serious of course were outside of the control of the trade unions – the behaviour of government, the employer/capitalist class and even the workers themselves.
Abdulah said that the movement had become a victim of its own success. The employee had forgotten the struggles and the movement that had brought real and measurable improvements to their condition over the past seventy years. To top it off, government and the private sector were bent on following neo-liberal economic models that have been proven to no longer work. Roget’s contribution dealt with employers’ inability to come to the bargaining table in good faith and labour laws that were stacked in favour of business owners. Remy regretted the insidious conversion of the only genuine worker centred place of learning to an institution where the eventual marketability of the degree is paramount. All of the leaders present tenaciously clung to the exercise of labour’s major trump card, the strike, as a matter of course and not necessarily a last resort.
So, what is the way forward for the labour movement? Can a way forward be forged given the movement’s history, development and its adherence to what has worked in the past?
To find some answers to these questions I visited the offices of one trade union veteran, one economist and one industrial relations consultant.
Contrary to views expressed by his colleagues, BIGWU’s Vincent Cabrera maintains that one of the leading problems facing the labour movement comes from within. He says discord continues to plague trade unions. The comment called to mind the boast by the OWTU’s  Ancel Roget that his union is one of a few forming the vanguard against ‘reactionaries’ in the trade union movement. Recent months are littered with stories of in-fighting- FITUN and NATUC’s separate platforms at Labour Day celebrations this year, and the fallout between FITUN members and the PSA being two examples. Cabrera, who is also NATUC’s vice president, was confident however that his organization and its FITUN colleagues were moving closer to bridging the divide. He says “more and more unions on both sides of the fence are seeing the absolute necessity to work together to improve the lot of workers.”
“I think labour is heading in a very positive direction. There are obstacles; there are also weaknesses, particularly the capacity of the trade unions to deal with new and evolving situations.”
The unions have laid almost every labour and societal problem at the doorsteps of the ‘new economics’. Lay-offs, the migration to greater use of contract labour, the slowness of the Public Sector Negotiating Committee and other employers to resolve collective agreement issues in a timely fashion, even the increase in crime and violence are all consequences of capitalism gone bad.
But is this borne out by real life situations?
Economist and lecturer, Dr. Lester Henry says that while the adoption of neo-liberal economic policy has been good for the capitalist, it has resulted in a steady decrease in real wages and benefits for the worker since the 1970s.  Drawing reference to the current medical debate taking place in the US, he argues that the complete deregulation of the health sector has almost put the cost of medical care, (the onus of which remains on the worker, unsupported by government or the employer)  out of reach for the average American.
Dr. Henry contends that it isn’t just good moral sense to take care of the worker, but good economic sense as well. Healthier populations tend to lead to greater productivity and efficiency gains.
He also points out that neo-liberal economic policies tend to promote wide income disparities in populations and warns that continued adherence to this economic model could result in situations as in Mexico or Colombia, where ten percent of the population hold the wealth while everyone else lives in grinding poverty.
But will the unions’ usual response of forcing the hands of government and employers through strikes, calls for shutdowns and court action, be enough to counter neo-liberalism and its effects?
“New tactics are fine but the trade unions have to keep standing up. We can’t just blithely sit and join government and the employer. We have to attempt to reform the law as a moral duty…The trade union movement must understand that if it comes together things must happen.’ With reference to PTSC and TSTT, Cabrera continues, “ they never expected the trade union movement (both FITUN and NATUC) to start to protest the way we protested, which is why they told their people at the state companies to pull back.”
But this, at best is a temporary solution, since experience has shown it results in the setting of a new equilibrium point in hostilities between the parties, with tensions slowly building until the next big blow-out. Newton George, an Industrial Relations consultant, says some type of balance must be struck between the unions’ right to engage in industrial action and their responsibility to the labour relations process.
Far from seeing neo-liberal economics as the key determinant in the current worker/employer struggle, George believes it is more an issue of badly managed conflict resolution.
“There is a school of thought that comes out from the HR school of management which says that if we have proper human resource management there is no need for the union. Meanwhile, the labour relations school of thought says the unions are necessary to temper that balance of power between employer and worker. You have that conflict in between management and labour unions because of that dichotomy in ideology. And you have this exacerbated by the economic things that are taking place to produce now, to produce better, to produce things faster, to produce things cheaper.”

He believes solutions lie in education, that is more persons trained in conflict management. It is not enough to agitate for better laws, when there are few trained people to effect them. George says judgments handed down to by the Industrial Court should be made accessible and explained to the average worker. This way, labour relations do not remain distant to the everyday concerns of the employee. The IR consultant also thought that managers should encourage people to become more aware of industrial relations issues and saw a role for the Labour College in this.
Dr Henry’s solutions were more far-reaching, suggesting nothing short of the jettisoning of the neo-liberal model itself.
“At the heart of the neo-liberal is an offensive against developing countries and any kind of tendency towards humane development. They don’t want to see that because it affects their profits” he says.
One thing becomes apparent immediately though, the unions cannot continue on their current trajectory. One only has to remember the massive lay-offs of the 1980s and the effect on the trade union strength to this day to see why. Could the labour movement survive another period like that? The need for purposeful worker-centered trade union leadership becomes even more vital.

The following interview with Lincoln Lewis, General Secretary of the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL) was first published in the Guyana Review of December 10, 2008.

From the standpoint of the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL)  what are the most important challenges confronting the regional labour movement today?
LL: Several things preoccupy us at this time. There is the challenge of creating a regional labour movement that is up to the challenges facing workers. It may surprise you to know that many of the problems facing labour are common across the region. There are organizational weaknesses, leadership deficiencies and in some cases, a lack of capacity to properly interpret and respond to the social, economic and political issues that challenge the region and, by extension, the workers of the region.
Our agenda has now gone far beyond the basic issues of the right to work and the conditions under which we work. There are new issues - issues like the environment, decent work, the changing nature of employer/employee relations, HIV/AIDS and, more recently, issues like the advent of the Caricom Single Market, the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) and the global economic crisis and its implications for the region. These issues comprise what I would describe as the new agenda.

What do you see as the critical implications of the Single Market for the regional labour movement?
LL: Simply put, we believe that the uninhibited movement of labour and capital from one country to another in the region is bound to have implications for the regional  labour movement as a whole. What is particularly obvious is that the Single Market creates similar kinds of challenges for employer/employee relations in all of the countries of the region that have signed on to the CSM.
We need to be concerned, for example, with the impact of the Single Market on the shift of jobs from one country to another and from one industry to another. We also need to be concerned about the impact of the movement of businesses from one country to another and the way in which that movement affects the survival of industries in the affected countries. What this means is that the various trade unions in the Caribbean must work more closely, among themselves as well as with employers and governments to develop common responses to those problems.

Can you give us a personal perspective as to how that challenge has to be met?
LL: I believe that labour has to begin to think outside of the box - so to speak. In the first instance we need to strengthen our capacity to make a meaningful contribution to the region-wide response to the challenges facing the Caribbean. Capacity-building is one of the preoccupations of the CCL at this time. What we are seeking to do is to strengthen the capacity of the various unions in the region to pursue their own internal agendas and to engage the other stakeholders on those issues that comprise what I have described as the new agenda. Additionally, I am personally quite excited about the idea of building bridges among regional trade unions in specific areas. For example, I had a discussion with a group of colleagues recently about the idea of creating single federations of unions with similar interests across the region so that we would have a Federation of Teachers’ Unions, for example; or a federation of unions in the energy sector or in the mining sector.
The idea behind this is to realize a pooling of intellectual and other resources and a coordination of policies. If this can be achieved it would obviously mean that the various categories of workers in the region would have greater collective clout in the region as a whole. I should say that this is very much an initial idea and that a great deal more work would have to be done to determine how, if at all, it can be actualized and what mechanisms we would need to put in place given the fact that we are talking about transnational structures. Interestingly, the idea of transnational mergers of unions is not entirely dissimilar to the tendency towards international mergers within the trade union fraternity.

What about the role of labour in responding to the current economic crisis in the region?
LL: The creeping economic crisis that is beginning to affect the region is at the top of the CCL’s agenda. The writing is already on the wall in terms of job losses in the tourism sector, particularly. I gave an interview to the Stabroek News recently in which I said that Caribbean governments were partly to blame for the situation.
There were things that we ought to have done three decades ago to try to protect our economies against just such an eventuality by reducing our dependence on markets in first world countries and stepping up our food security. Although none of the politicians in the region have had the presence of mind to say it, the fact is that we failed to do those things. Regional leaders in their assessment of the crisis talk about the meltdown in the financial institutions in the United States and the global economic crisis. Those are not the only reasons for the crisis.
The problem is that Caribbean Heads of Government do not want to be seen to have to take any of the responsibility for the crisis. Our societies are still not open to placing the blame where it belongs, particularly when it comes to our politicians. I believe, however, that the challenge lies in finding solutions here in the region. Obviously, food security is a critical issue, not only from the standpoint of feeding ourselves but also in terms of job-creation in the agricultural sector; not just salaried jobs but also in terms of more people being self-employed. I believe, however, that the process has to start with a common understanding among the stakeholders - governments, labour, the private sector and others - regarding the way forward. The challenge here lies in the fact that some governments are less committed to the idea of a stakeholder partnership than others. That has to change if we are to find a way out of this crisis. Governments cannot think that they can do this alone when there are other stakeholder interests at stake.

Is labour equipped to play its role as a partner in this process?
LL: Frankly, I am not sure. The situation varies from one country to another. In Guyana, for example, labour is weak and divided and the highly touted stakeholder arrangement of a few years ago has collapsed completely.
The government pays no attention to the Guyana Trades Union Congress. In fact, one of the things that I find particularly distressing is the misleading cliché about consulting with labour, that is used here in Guyana. Pretensions to consultations with the labour movement on the part of the government of Guyana are a farce.  What we seeing is a relationship with a handful of unions that do not represent even a quarter of the workers of this country.
That is a terrible misrepresentation of the reality of relations between government and labour in Guyana. On the other hand it has to be said that in some respects the leadership of the trade union movement in Guyana has, in many respects, failed its constituency and must therefore take some measure of responsibility for the crisis…
The trade union movement also suffers from a scarcity of leadership skills, and what appears to be an inability to properly interpret the changing climate and understand the changing agenda. In some cases, there is simply a   preoccupation with power by leaders who are self-centred and are not even capable of using their occupation of office to improve the lot of the workers that they purport to represent.
I believe that what is at stake compels the labour movement  to recognize the need for change. We need a new generation of trade union leaders who need to be more sensitive to workers’ issues, more aware of the current agenda and, I daresay, more focussed on carrying through with that  agenda.

Are you suggesting the current crop of labour leaders have outlived their usefulness?
LL: What I am saying is that the decline in the membership of the labour movement … and the seeming loss of faith in organized labour may well speak to the need for comprehensive change with the labour movement and that that change may, in some instances, include a change in leadership. We need to be frank about this. The contemporary workers’ agenda of 2008 is a far more complex agenda than that of thirty years ago. It is not just a question of putting together a Collective Labout Agreement. What I am saying, therefore, is that leadership in the context of contemporary labour is much more challenging. If some of the current leaders are to be honest they will admit that their skills are far too limited to cope with the demands of the current agenda.
The problem here, of course, is that leadership of trade unions is not as appealing a vocation as it was in the past. In addition to this many of the younger generation of workers across the region have complained that their efforts to rise to leadership positions have been stymied by the current crop of leaders. In sum I wish to say - and we must make no mistake about this - that if the movement is to effectively serve its purpose then we can no longer afford to sweep our own deficiencies under the carpet and simply point to deficiencies elsewhere.
Deficient leadership is one of the problems facing the movement and we cannot wish that away. What I may add - and we need to take cognizance of this is that informed thinkers in the Caribbean are also raising questions about the quality of leadership being provided by political leaders in the region in terms of their capacity to adopt and implement policies that respond to the aspirations of the people of the region. I was in Antigua a few months ago for the opening of the Conference of Heads of CARICOM.
That forum was addressed by the Barbadian novelist George Lamming who told the assembled group of Heads that it was quite likely that people in the region were not paying the slightest attention to the fact that their political leaders were meeting in Antigua at that time.
I believe that what Lamming was saying in effect was that Caribbean Heads may well be rendering themselves irrelevant to the concerns of the people they are elected to govern since, in some cases, their promises of development were taking the region nowhere. I still recall the hush that fell over the gathering when Lamming made that pronouncement. It seemed to me that amidst the fanfare associated with the opening ceremony for the Conference of Caribbean Heads Lamming had touched on a reality which the assembled Heads and other officials found discomfiting.

Is the challenge of leadership deficiencies in the labour movement not another challenge for the CCL?
LL: It is, in the first instance, a challenge for the individual trade unions in the region. It is the workers themselves who must agitate for change. It is they who must demand accountability; it is they who must ensure that their unions adhere to democratic practices. There is a role here for the CCL. We can support training initiatives by working through the respective umbrella labour organizations. Where new leaders are identified we can help prepare them for leadership. But in the final analysis it is the workers themselves who must agitate for change.
Sometimes we tend to forget that unions are the property of the workers. I believe that there are two reasons for that loss of memory. The first reason, in my opinion, has to do with the indifference of the workers themselves. That indifference, in a sense, leads to the second reason and that is, the hijacking of unions in some cases by leaders who are not really concerned with the objectives of labour and are merely taking advantage of the lack of vigilance on the part of the workers. The experience of the past tells me that if the labour movement is to grow and to serve its purpose workers need to be more vigilant about holding their leaders to account and about ensuring that the structures of their unions are democratic, transparent and that they allow for worker control.

How has the current agenda affected the relationship between employer and employee?
LL: That is an interesting question. On the one hand the essence of the employer/employee relationship has really not changed at all. What has happened, however, is that a number of new issues have come on the agenda and these issues have definitely impacted on the way in which they relate to each other. I will give you two examples. The first is the environment. Before issues of the environment assumed prominence on the global agenda, issues of health and safety were, in the main, matters that were confined to the Collective Labour Agreement. Today the environment embraces, among other things, issues of health and safety. What this means is that health and safety is no longer strictly an employer/employee matter.
Those aspects of health and safety that have a bearing on the environment are, in many instances, matters of national and global concern, What this means is that both employer and employee have identical goals. Good health and safety practices are not just a matter of adhering to the conditions set out in the Collective Labour Agreement. It is, in many instances, a matter of complying with national laws.
The second example is HIV/AIDS. As you are aware the International Labour Organization (ILO) is playing a prominent role in addressing HIV/AIDS as a workplace problem. What we have seen in recent years is a tremendous increase in the level of employer/employee collaboration in terms of establishing HIV/AIDS Workplace Committees and taking other initiatives to respond to the problem. I believe that these are two excellent examples of a convergence of employer/employee interests that have helped to strengthen relations between trade unions and workplaces.

Is the CCL comfortable with its relations with the regional private sector.?
LL: Words like ‘comfortable’ cannot be applied in situations that are fluid. What I would say is that the CCL has engaged some of large business houses in the region and organizations like the Caribbean Association of Industry of Commerce (CAIC)and we have found what in some instances has been a refreshingly enlightened view on industrial relations among    private sector representatives.
I think that what we are finding in many instances is that there is a convergence of interests between the trade union movement and employers and I have explained some of the reasons for that convergence of interests.
The private sector community is an enlightened and pragmatic community and when you engage some private sector businessmen you very quickly discover that. Certainly, I would say that it is very much in the interest of regional labour relations that we continue to build bridges with the private sector that are based on mutual respect and a mutual regard for each other’s interests.

Do you believe that the current agenda requires a shift in labour’s approach to addressing the problems of workers’ in the region?
LL: Labour is not only about addressing problems. It is also about contributing to solutions; solutions for the countries of the region, the region as a whole and the workers of the region. It is evident, for example, that labour has an interest in contributing to economic stability and progress in the region since those goals are consistent with the welfare of the workers who are represented by the various trade unions.
I believe that it is necessary that we embrace the institutions through which those goals are met and that we work with those institutions; and here I include governments, regional institutions like CARICOM, the private sector and the international trade union movement.
The approach requires different sets of skills and the training that we provide must include training in those skills. We often hear it said that the trade union movement is about struggle. Unfortunately, some people tend to place struggle in a physical context.
That is a misrepresentation of what labour is all about. Of course struggle is about tough negotiations and about industrial action when that becomes necessary, Struggle, however, is also the sum total of all that we do—whether on the picket line or in collaborative discourses with other  institutions.
At the end of the day every effort that we make, in whatever way that we make that effort, is part of that struggle.