ILO Caribbean Office ·~· REPORT OF THE CARIBBEAN LABOUR MINISTERS MEETING 23 - 24 April1998 Georgetown, Guyana I_ ·-· / All correspondence should be addressed to the ILO Caribbean Office, P.O. Box 1201, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Telephone: 868-628-1453, Facsimile: 868-628-2433, e-mail: 17ocarrb@ilocarib. org. tt. ~ Visit our web-site at: ilocarib.org.tt Table of Contents Introduction ......................................................................................... .4 Item 1: Opening Ceremony ........................................................................ 4 Business Sessions ................................................................................... 13 Item2: ILO Activities ..................................................................... 15 2.1. Report of the ILO Caribbean Office on its work during the 1996-97 biennium 2.2. ILO Statement on Common Objectives and Problems in the Caribbean 2.3. ILO Caribbean Office Work Programme for the 1998-1999 period Item 3: Regional Issues .................................................................... 25 3 .I. Recent developments and issues in Labour Relations in the Caribbean -A Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL) Perspective 3 .2. Recent developments and issues in Labour Relations in the Caribbean -A Caribbean Employers Confederation (CEC) Perspective 3.3. CARl COM Report regarding Regional Labour Issues Item4: Proposal for an ILO/CARICOM Symposium to discuss labour issues in the context of economic development and trade ............................ 27 Item 5: International Issues .............................................................. 29 5 .1. The 86th Session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) 5.l.a. Contract Labour 5.l.b. Child Labour 5.1.c. Job Creation in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises 5.1.d. Declaration of Principles of the ILO on Fundamental Human Rights 5.2. International Labour Standards including Basic Human Rights Conventions - Status and Responses 5.3. Other International Labour Conference Issues 2 -, ' 5.4. The 14th Conferenc~ ofiLO American Member States [_ Item 6: The role of the state in Industrial Relations ................................... .40 I 6.1. A Government Perspective (Guyana) 6.2. A Worker's Perspective (CCL) 6.3. An Employer's Perspective (CEC) 6.4. An ILO Perspective Item 7: A wider strategic vision for Social Partnership and Development ......... 45 Item 8: An IDB Labour Market Study for the Caribbean ............................ .49 Item 9: Other Business ................................................................... .53 Item 10: Closing Session .................................................................... 53 3 Introduction 1. The Meeting of the Caribbean Labour Ministers was convened by the ILO Caribbean Office in collaboration with the CARICOM Secretariat and the Government of Guyana at the Pegasus Hotel, Georgetown, on 23-24 April, 1998. 2. The purpose of the meeting was to provide Ministers with a forum for exchanging information and views on current labour and social issues facing the region as well as to coordinate their positions for the 86'h Session of the International Labour Conference. 3. Represented at the Meeting were Ministers, Senior Government representatives, delegates from regional and national Trade Union and Employer bodies as well as representatives from CAR! COM and IDB. A full list of representatives attending the ·~· meeting is attached as Annex 1 to this Report. Opening Ceremony ! CHAIR: 4. Mr. Samuel Goolsarran, Senior Specialist in Labour Administration and Industrial Relations, ILO Caribbean Multidisciplinary Advisory Team (CAMAT), chaired the Opening Ceremony. He extended words of welcome and introduced the speakers. / REPRESENTATIVE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GUY ANA: 5. The Honourable Henry B. Jeffrey, Minister of Health and Labour, Government of Guyana, in his welcoming remarks, extended a warm welcome to Ministers, official representatives, the ILO Director and his staff as well as all others guests present at the ceremony. 4 6. Minister Jeffrey noted that the contemporary struggle for survival in the global marketplace had produced a quantum shift in the way labour was viewed and organised at both the levels of the enterprise and the state. He remarked that the conceptual transformation taking place was reinforcing the evidence that worker participation leads to greater output and called for a comprehensive view oflabour. 7. Minister Jeffrey observed that in Guyana as well as in the Caribbean as a whole, labour ministries did not have the kind of involvement in devising the general course of socio-economic development, which the new global production and trade environment required. Therefore, he welcomed the policy agenda of the Labour Ministers Meeting and spoke of the need to develop a better appreciation of the issues at stake. 8. He also referred to the first meeting of the new CARICOM Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) and the need to properly locate labour in this new CARICOM ministerial council, which brought together all of the traditional social sector ministries: Health, Education, Housing, Youth, Women, Sports and Labour. In closing, Minister Jeffrey thanked the ILO for its continuing support and insight in hosting these inter-sessional meetings to further develop the regional labour agenda. REPRESENTATNE OF THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION 9. In his introductory remarks, Mr. Willi Momm, Director of the ILO Caribbean Office and Multi-Disciplinary Advisory Team, stated that this was the second time that the Ministers with responsibility for Labour met under the auspices of the ILO in this sub-region. This was the result of an agreement with CARICOM to introduce intersessional ILO-sponsored meetings to the meetings of the Standing Committee of Ministers with responsibility for Labour. I 0. Mr. Momm then introduced the agenda, which proposed both to review ILO activities in the Caribbean and to deal with important international issues that were seen as 5 crucial in the preparation of the region to enter the 21" century. He stressed that this meeting was of a tripartite nature and took place in the city, which hosts the CAR! COM Secretariat. Rather than being a mere coincidence, Mr Momm felt that this was an expression of the ILO's commitment to further strengthen its ties with this eminent regional organisation and to offer assistance in helping the region to fulfill its goal of economic integration under conditions of social justice and equity. II. Furthermore, Mr. Momm viewed the fact that the meeting was taking place in Guyana at a time, when the country was going through very difficult times, both politically and economically, as a show of solidarity and sympathy for the people of Guyana. He extended greetings and good wishes to the Government of Guyana on behalf of the Director-General of the ILO. 12. Mr. Momm emphasized the necessity for Caribbean states to be actors and not simply victims of development. He alluded to the quickly accelerating process of ·~· globalization that had ushered in an era of unprecedented need for change. He expressed the view that it was precisely for this Meeting of Labour Ministers to deliberate what globalization could mean for the region and what countries should do about it from a labour perspective. 13. Mr. Momm went on to characterize globalization as a situation where people can buy and sell more freely, but where local products now have more competition from cheaper international products. However, globalization also means reduced power of the State bureaucracies to interfere in markets and might put small countries with a / very small manufacturing base at a distinct disadvantage. Thus, he said that some would experience the withdrawal of the State as loss of protection, while others would welcome it as the long awaited freedom to do business. 14. Mr. Momm pointed out that it was this ambiguity of globalization, which made the development of a strategic and proactive response imperative. While a country's position in the global economy depended largely on what it had to offer in terms of 6 goods and services, it was wrong to see globalization only in economic terms. Rather, any successful response to globalization had to take account of developments in the labour market and had to be forged in the sphere of labour relations. Thus, issues of productivity, capacity utilization, flexibilization and human resources management were equally important as wages, labour costs and conditions of work. 15. Mr Momm further stressed that dysfunctional labour relations, general insecurity, industrial unrest, arbitrary adjudication and ineffective bureaucracies were the most important factors that tended to put off investors. Consequently, it was important to realize that investment decisions were largely determined by the following criteria: • Social stability • Good industrial relations • Solid infrastructure • Availability of a qualified workforce ·-· • Level of workforce flexibility • Functioning labour force institutions • Reliable and transparent regulatory framework, including labour legislation. 16. Against this background, Mr. Momm reiterated his point that labour policy should claim its rightful place at the centre and not at the margins of national policy making. In this context, the ILO Director also indicated his interest in finding out about the results of the Labour Market Study that the IDB had just completed and whose findings would be presented during the Labour Ministers