Weekly Column

Cost of wildcat strikes – lost man-hours!
Cost of failing to follow established grievance procedures – job losses!
Cost of a stable industrial relations climate – priceless!

What could our new brand Ministers of Labour have been thinking last Friday when, faced with the announcement of a five day deadline for a General Strike, they failed to use the Government agencies over the weekend to bring resolution to the two matters threatening to shut down the country. And even if resolution was not forthcoming, such action would surely have advanced the process sufficiently by Monday morning to allow for enlightened engagement by one or both of the Labour Ministers, giving them two full days to bring the aggrieved parties to a resolution. We would hate to think that a retreat for new Ministers, or that the Prime Minister was to jet off privately to New York for a DLP function over the weekend played any role in their failure to realize the requirement for early action in the circumstances. Strike one!

We could be charitable. Chalk it up to inexperience. But inexperience is a pale stand in for leadership. The Government is guilty of dithering on this issue. There simply can be no excuse for taking the country to the brink of a General Strike on the basis of the new Minister of Labour finding it “necessary to get a sense of where we are” on Tuesday. Strike two!

Everyone knew where we were last Friday. Neither the Minister nor his newly empowered Minister of State found it necessary to act with the urgency demanded by the situation. What state of affairs would the country have awoken to on Wednesday morning had Sir Roy Trotman not saved the Government by deferring the strike “to allow the Government to use its office in the interest of the country”.

One thing is clear. The stable industrial relations climate that Barbados enjoyed over the last thirteen years was no accident. It was a consequence of a proactive approach to the Social Partnership model. Enlightened engagement, not intervention, by former Prime Minister Arthur to mediate and to solve industrial relations crises of national importance was pursued as had been done by Prime Ministers Barrow and Adams. There is nothing more devastating to a county’s economic well being than protracted or frequent industrial unrest. It drives away foreign investment, curtails domestic economic expansion and often leads ironically to the loss of the one thing unions fight so hard to preserve – jobs. No amount of griping by Prime Minister Thompson about how his office is constructed will change this.

Born as we were out of the 1930’s struggles we know the value and benefit of a strong labour movement, its impact on economic growth and social and political stability. We know that the rights of the worker must always be supported. Equally we also know that there must be a balanced approach to what is essentially a symbiotic relationship between employer and employee. It will always take two hands to clap. As a Government we were always concerned at the number of wildcat strikes where known grievance procedures were not followed. By the same token we were also concerned that dismissal was often the first and only option exercised by employers in such circumstances. We join Sir Roy’s call for a clear protocol to be established in such situations. We hope it will engage the attention of the Social Partnership with some dispatch.

The Government is still at bat.

Like most fair-minded Barbadians we look forward to a quick settlement of the deferred strike in a manner that is neither inimical to the interests of the country nor the workers.

Strike three will not be in anyone’s interest.