…but government must do more to attract, keep investors
General Secretary of the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL) Lincoln Lewis has said that he believes that the Jagdeo Initiative that seeks to centre regional food security around Guyana’s agricultural potential is deserving of the attention of the rest of the region given the circumstances in which the Caribbean finds itself.
“The fact is that the Caribbean is confronted with a situation in which it can no longer afford to pay for the food that it imports from outside the region. We believe, therefore, that it makes every sense to seek a solution from inside the region. We believe too that it could be a workable solution both as far as feeding the region is concerned as well as broadening Guyana’s agricultural base”, Lewis said.
According to the CCL General Secretary the countries representing the Caribbean Community are “far too small and far too vulnerable” to address the prevailing economic crisis individually. He said that in the same way that the region was seeking to pursue an opportunity to work together to ensure its food security, so, too, labour, government and the private sector in the Caribbean must “find common cause” in a collective approach to responding to the broader economic crisis, Otherwise, Lewis said, the process of recovery for all of the region “could be much more painful than it ought to be.”
Lewis said that he believed that it would be a mistake for regional governments to believe that they could fashion and implement all of the solutions to the crisis while excluding “labour and the other social partners.” According to Lewis while the crisis currently confronting the region “is probably being perceived purely in economic terms,” there are “critical social dimensions” to the challenges that lie ahead.
“We need to bear in mind that threatened job losses arising out of the economic crisis will also have social implications and that there are other institutions, including the labour movement that have a vested interest in the welfare of workers. The other point to be made is that we stand a better chance of maintaining social cohesion and stability if all of the stakeholders are at one,” Lewis said.
Lewis told Stabroek Business that while the CCL was already aware that there had been job losses in the tourism and mining sectors in several Caribbean Community countries, the organization was yet to secure “a complete sense” of the impact of loss of markets and declining production on labour displacement in the region as a whole. He said that once that information became available the CCL and the labour movement across the region would have “a great deal of work to do” to address the situation.
Asked to outline the intended response of the regional labour movement to anticipated job losses resulting from the economic downturn Lewis said that part of the response would require “serious and intense discourse among stakeholders.” He said that he believed that given the circumstances, private sector employers ought to be prepared to pursue options which, “as far as possible reduce the layoff of workers” as an option.
“I am not suggesting that a point may not be reached in some cases where there may be some job losses. I believe, however, that the consequences of higher unemployment in the region ought to have a sobering effect on those employers who may pursue staff reduction as the first option in a crisis,” Lewis said.
Lewis, who is General Secretary (on leave) of the Guyana Trades Union Congress told Stabroek Business that he was concerned that “in its present condition of weakness and division” the Guyana Trades Union Congress was “far from properly equipped to play the role that it needs to play in helping to respond to the current crisis. “I concede that there are divisions in the movement and that those divisions have made the movement weaker. Arising out of that there has also been a considerable loss of faith in sections of the leadership of the movement. What we really need in Guyana is to have the workers regain control of their unions and run them in the interest of the workers,” Lewis said.
Lewis, who often locked horns with government during active service as GTUC General Secretary told Stabroek Business that he believed that the excesses that have often characterized the relationship between government and labour in Guyana were a function of intransigence on the part of the political administration on a number of important issues. “I do not believe that it does us any good, particularly in the circumstances that we find ourselves, to continue along a road of confrontation. The fact is, however, that labour needs to be treated as a genuine social partner. As long as there are attempts, to divide, control and manipulate the labour movement it is difficult to see how controversy will come to an end,” Lewis said.
Asked whether he believed that it was still possible for government and the GTUC to engage each other given the controversies that have ensued in the past, Lewis said that he believed that dialogue was still possible. “In fact what you may well find is that as the economic crisis deepens – and I believe it will – it will become more and more necessary for government, labour and the private sector to sit together,” he added.
Asked about his particular concerns about the labour movement in Guyana, Lewis said that he was uneasy over “the under-representation of ordinary wage earners in Guyana.” He said that apart from the fact that many of the most vulnerable workers were not members of trade unions “and therefore at the mercy of the situation” others were members of unions which “in my opinion are neither inclined or prepared to represent them.”
And according to Lewis the expansion of the agricultural sector to embrace business and investment interests from across the Caribbean and further afield required “a shift in the official approach to processing overseas investors.” He said that it was no secret, both in the region and beyond that potential investors had become “wary of the many blockages” in local investment procedures that sometimes, made some people “give up” trying to invest in Guyana.
The CCL General Secretary said, however, that he believed that the focus on placing agriculture at the forefront of the domestic initiative to tackle the economic crisis was a “workable” approach. “Where the problem lies is in determining how serious we are both from the standpoint of aggressively seeking to attract investors into the country and from the standpoint of creating the conditions that keep them here,” he added.
