Very regularly on our newscast, we feature the breakdown of industrial relations between the management of important companies or government departments and the employees who work for them. That's usually at the point where things have come to a head, and there has been a stalemate so impassable that the employees feel that the only outlet they have is to bring their concerns to the media.
But, the experts in collective bargaining say that these are the most unhealthy of professional relationships. It is slowly becoming the norm of an "us versus them" mentality where either the workers or the managers approach bargaining in a fiercely adversarial stance that hardly any progress is made in negotiations. Inevitably, the Labour Department staff is then forced to step in as referees in an attempt to break the impasse.
Well, the Ministry of Labour says thinks that is counterproductive, and today they partnered with the University of the West Indies Open Campus in Belize to host a 3-day workshop. Its themed "Reinventing Collective Bargaining in the Public and Private Sectors". The organizers invited representatives from the unions, the big companies, and government departments to discuss a better way to resolve industrial disputes.
7News attended the opening ceremony, and we spoke with one of the lead facilitators, Dr. Noel Cowell. He is a Senior Lecturer in Employment Relations at the University of the West Indies, Mona School of Business and Management. He explained what these representatives could possibly learn in a topic that they should already be very familiar with:
Dr. Noel Cowell - Lecturer. Labour & Employment, UWI
"We've been doing this for many years in the Caribbean, but there are traditional ways of doing it and these traditional ways we have generally refer to as being adversarial. In other words it is viewed as a competition, a fight and they approach it from the point the view that what we're about is to try to ensure that the other party does not take from me. We are also trying to ensure that the other party - that we don't have to give the other party very much. We want to explore one single fundamental question, the idea that we could rethink and reinvent and transformed the way in which we look at collective bargaining."
Hon. Hugo Patt - Minister of Labour
"You heard the commissioner of labour indicating that we don't want to be firefighters in this particular sector and so we thought of ways that we want the relevant stake holders within this sector to empower themselves and be able to come up with the kinds of ideas, the kinds of tools that would better prepare them for this. Certainly, I don't agree with the adversarial approach of the tradition here in Belize. I don't think and this is my personal opinion, I don't think that this is an approach that is healthy to everybody."
Ivan Williams - Labour Commissioner
"While there may be a need for strikes and lockouts because the employer can lock you out too and the Union can take Industrial actions. In many respects it is a waste of resources. So, if we can have parties working together in a more harmonious relation where there is trust, respect and so on, then we can bring about a better appreciation for the collective bargaining process."
Daniel Ortiz
"From time to time we encounter these bargaining agreements where there is a genuine suspicion on the part of the employees, that look, the employers can afford this, they simply refuse to."
Dr. Noel Cowell - Lecturer. Labour & Employment, UWI
"That is one of the fundamental issues. What we do, is that we look at it, we discuss it, we analyze it. We recognize that when you're involved in collective bargaining it is not only about salary, it's not only about a list of demands that people make on the other party, the entire process can be rethought. It doesn't mean that you eliminate something as fundamental as the necessity of having an increase in wages, but we really need to sit and explore why it is, what interests on underlies the demand for an increase of 5% or 6% or 2% or 10% and where does it suit, to what extent does it suit the employer to work with this request?"
Day one ended today, and the workshop continues tomorrow. It ends on Thursday, and each participant will receive a certificate of participation from the UWI Facilitators.
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