CARICOM Secreary-General tells COHSOD meeting
THE Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is conscious that labour must be a serious component in any plan for the future sustainability of the region. This was the assurance given by Secretary-General of CARICOM, Mr. Edwin Carrington, yesterday at the opening of the 19th Meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD), in collaboration with the Seventh International Labour Organisation (ILO) Meeting of Caribbean Labour Ministers.
Under the theme “Policy Conference for Human and Social Development in the Caribbean Community: the Contribution of Labour Ministries and the Decent Work Agenda”, the three-day meeting is being held at the Guyana International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara.
Carrington, in his remarks, said, “I am particularly pleased with the sustained partnership between the CARICOM and ILO.”
He acknowledged the substantial results of the special partnership between ILO and CARICOM Secretariat, as they span developments in areas of modern legislation, labour legislation, registration, status and recognition of trade unions, and occupational safety.
“When these provisions are enacted by member states, the validity of the work environment will be greatly enhanced and we will be much closer to achieving a decent work agenda,” he stated.
This immediately illustrates functional cooperation, creating management of overlapping agendas which could help to advance programmes in an effective and efficient manner for the benefit of the peoples of the region.
He said the meeting is taking place at a time when the region and the entire world is preoccupied with strategies aimed at recuperation from a financial and economic crisis, alluding to its effect on employment and the labour market.
He referred to the persistent high rate of unemployment and downturn in the services sector, particularly the tourism industry in most Caribbean countries, as they continue to impact negatively on the economies of the region.
The CARICOM Secretary General said the crisis has created a level of uncertainty that will test labour leaders,  government ministers and ministries, as well as the creativity of employers and employees alike.
“It highlights more than ever the values and virtues of developing, and in some cases, consolidating social partnerships among governments, employers, labour unions and the others in civil society,” he said.
He said the theme is most appropriate, and recalled that when the Decent Work Agenda was enunciated about a decade ago, there was the underlined vision of what can be called a revolution in rising entitlements in the work place.”
“Today it is more likely to be translated as a survival of, and in the work place,” he noted, and alluded to the report of the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development, with a staggering level of unemployment of youths as high as 50 per cent in some instances, which “has to be a major cause for concern to us.”
He noted the importance of a concerted effort to harness sustainable public private partnership, strengthen institutional capabilities and create the enabling environment for human and social development.
“The Caribbean community is conscious that labour must be a serious component in any plan for the future sustainability of the region,” he emphasised.
He said labour plays a central role in the emergency development vision 2008, and the draft plan for economic development of CARICOM 2010 from the CARICOM single market to the CARICOM Single Economy targeted to be implemented by 2015.
He said he was pleased to note that the conference will focus on carrying forward the work initiated at the sixth Meeting of the Caribbean Labour Ministers.
He noted that valuable strides have been made in facilitating the free movement of CARICOM nationals.
Carrington mentioned the work of the Caribbean Tripartite Council, and also implored participants to address the matter of Haiti with “all the seriousness it deserves.”
Guyana’s Minister of Labour, Mr. Manzoor Nadir, addressing the gathering, including members of the Diplomatic community and participating labour officials, said it is an honor for Guyana to be hosting the meeting.
Alluding to cooperation in the region, especially at the level of the Ministers of Labour and the Labour Ministries, he said he has seen the regional groupings and the donor community working significantly together to enhance labour administration.

However, the minister noted, “We have still a lot of work to do.”
In his remarks, Regional Director of ILO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mr. Jean Maninat, via video, said Labour ministries and Ministers “have a crucial job to play in the time and circumstances in which we are living.”
He referred to the global crisis which had an immediate adverse impact on jobs; and observed that now there is a new challenge, the long time it takes to get the jobs back when the economy does recover.
He said the ILO is pleased that the CARICOM Secretariat is putting labour on the agenda of COHSOD, which is a sign of their strong partnership.
Grenada Minister of Labour, and Chair of COHSOD, Mr. Karl Hood, speaking of some issues in the policy agenda that affect labour directly, touched on the CARIFORUM/EPA agreement.
He said the coherence of the regional labour system requires completion of a project for standardization of CARICOM labour market information system, and believes that in light of the recent technological advancement, the time has come for the creation of a regional labour market information network.
Also, he said the issue of migration and its implication for the labour market is in need of urgent attention, and pointed, too, to issues relating to gender and labour.
Senior Economic Adviser, ILO Headquarters, Mr. Robert Kyloh, delivering the feature address, said one can have policy coherence in many different fields and endeavours.
He said decent work is what the ILO has been about throughout its history, providing jobs for everyone who wants to work, making sure that they have good quality jobs that reflect international labour stands, providing good pay, providing social security, providing employment protection; all this free of discrimination, and with embodied rights including the rights to gender equality.
He explained, “Policy coherence is really about saying that we who work in the labour field can’t achieve that objective on our own and we need help from others.”
Referring to the recession, he said that much of the economic forecast points to very good news that “the global economy is set to grow quite robustly this year and next, roughly around four per cent”.
He said the large emerging and developing countries will grow even faster by about six percent, which is “clearly good news, but behind those headline figures, there remain a number of frailties.”
He said there are many economies and many regions that would lag behind and unfortunately several parts of the Caribbean fall in that category, with at least six countries that are expected to continue to contract in 2010. .
He said the same forecast would be suggesting that growth
in 2011 will be moderate.
Looking back at who has done well out of the recession, he said growth in United States, the epicenter of the financial crisis, was not as bad in 2009 as many had expected, and US is expected to grow this year twice as fast as the European Union.
“The one conclusion I derived from this is the importance of very rapid proactive monetary and fiscal policy being combined in tandem to affect the recession,” he stated.
He said many of the big emerging countries are the ones in the vanguard of the recovery, like Brazil, China, and India, and many of these other countries that are going to put the world economy back on a firm footing.
“I would suggest to you that many of these countries in the decade prior to recession were moving in the right direction in terms of social policy and labour policy,” he also stated.
He said based on current economic analysis, countries that will remain in recession for a prolonged period “saw greatest emphasis on increasing labour market flexibility, reducing employment protection, and reducing labour standards in the decade leading up to the recession.”
“One can at least claim that it is possible to improve labour standards and achieve faster economic growth simultaneously, and when one puts these two things in opposition, one can jeopardize both objectives,” he stressed.
He said, in most countries of the Caribbean, “The unfortunate reality is that there is little scope in the short run for the monetary and fiscal policies that the European and other advanced countries have had in the last two years.”
“But that shouldn’t stop you from trying to build that type of fiscal space in the future.”
In response to the feature address, President of the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL), Ms. Jacqueline Jack, assured that CCL will continue to play its part in helping to ensure that matters of concern are adequately addressed.
She said the problems faced today are great, and have created tremendous problems for workers and their unions, and also significantly affect the achievement of the ILO laudable goal of decent work.
She noted that now is the time for the labour movement to once again take the lead in addressing the serious economic issues that confront the region, and trust, cooperation and collaboration of the social partners is very urgent.