…says ILO’s Dr. Romero
The participation of unions in trade negotiations is something that is still being addressed at the regional level.
This is according to Director of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Subregional Office for the Caribbean, Dr. Ana Theresa Romero. She was speaking at a press conference last Friday, following the close of the 19th Meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD), in collaboration with the Seventh International Labour Organisation (ILO) Meeting of the Caribbean Labour Ministers.
The successful three-day meeting was held under the theme “Policy Coherence for Human and Social Development in the Caribbean Community: The Contribution of Labour Ministries and the Decent Work Agenda.”
With respect to the participation of unions in trade negotiations, she said it is something that is still being addressed at the regional level.
“Because it has to be put on the agenda with the negotiations for the CARICOM/Canada trade agreement,” she noted.
“However, it is important to note that employers and workers are being fully consulted with respect to the implementation of the CARIFORUM/EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) agreement, which in fact has a social chapter that provides for government employers and workers to address the social dimension of that economic agreement,” she said.
“So I have no doubt that in the course of the negotiations, and in the course of the preliminary discussions with Canada, that this issue of having a similar arrangement will come up and will be addressed, and the Caribbean Congress of Labour as well as the Caribbean Employers Confederation will be given an opportunity to participate in those deliberations,” she expressed.
She said she thinks the decisions still have to be taken with respect to including a social dimension to the trade negotiations agenda.
“When trade negotiations are taking place, the focus usually is on market access issues and it is very difficult for people to extend their minds beyond just dealing with trade schedules and what they are going to open markets to in the negotiations,” she noted.
Adding, “What you need now is a rechanging; a resetting of the minds of trade negotiators so that they would see that there is a social dimension to trade agreements that needs the participation of the social partners, that is employers and workers.”
“This is something that I think in the course of the discussions, both within CARCIOM and at the national level, people are going to come around to it, but it is a question of getting people who are used to just dealing with trade from a trade perspective taking onboard the idea that trade has a impact on people as workers and people as employers, and that their views have to be taken onboard,” she reiterated.
She said the door for that consideration has already been opened by having an EPA that has a social chapter that addresses the social aspect of a trade agreement.
“So I think that it is a process and it is in progress, and that it is certainly not something that one can turn one’s back on, because the door has already been opened by having a social chapter in the EPA,” she stated.
Referring to questions regarding contract workers both in the public sector and the private sector, she said the issue of contract workers is one that definitely falls in the realm of respecting the rights of workers and affording them the opportunity to join trade unions of their choice, and also to have governments draw up legislation that would also extend coverage to these workers.
“So this is something that definitely Ministries of Labour and other related ministries could address to ensure that protection is extended to workers, regardless of the duration of their contract of employment so that the terms and conditions of employment will be extended also to workers regardless of their contractual status,” she stated.