Caribbean employers’ and workers’ organizations reaffirm joint action plan for transforming world of work in the region

In their first official ILO-hosted bipartite discussion of 2021, the Caribbean Employers’ Confederation (CEC) and the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL) have pledged to continue working together to tackle labour market challenges that have been fast-tracked by the impacts of COVID-19. 

Held on 18 February 2021, the meeting was an opportunity for the CEC-CCL leadership to reflect on finding collective solutions to build back better from the crisis. The joint programme of action was originally established during pre-pandemic times in December 2019. During the follow-up meeting, both organizations agreed to strengthen a joint framework that addresses social dialogue in policy development; sustainable jobs and enterprises; social protection systems; skills mismatches in the region; resilient labour markets and the impact of family violence on workplaces.

Due to the current context of the COVID-19 crisis, efforts to address these issues have become more urgent as the region faces significant losses in employment and business productivity with uncertain signs of economic recovery in key economic sectors such as tourism.  

Dennis Zulu, Director of the ILO Decent Work Team and Office for the Caribbean commended the enduring commitment of the social partners. “With the world of work transforming rapidly, both regional organizations agreed to strengthen cooperation through a joint programme of action aimed at building secure and resilient labour markets in the best interest of workers and employers and in cooperation with governments,” he explained. “The ILO Caribbean Office welcomes this ongoing collaboration between the CEC and CCL to solve the region’s most pressing issues, particularly amid the challenges of COVID-19. We are committed to providing technical guidance and facilitating dialogue to ensure the success of the joint actions.” 

During the meeting, participants highlighted that closing social protection gaps is key to an effective recovery from the crisis. “COVID-19 has shown us that we all need social protection; not just the poor and vulnerable. It is a human right and social and economic necessity and now more than ever a political necessity,” said Ariel Pino, Social Protection and Occupational Safety and Health Specialist at the ILO Caribbean Office, who shared insights in the context of the pandemic. “We should keep in mind that every action we take towards building complete and comprehensive social protection systems also contributes to achieve universal coverage for all.”

Guest panelist Dyon Elliott, a consultant who developed the ILO Curricula Mismatch Self-Assessment Tool explained the purpose of the tool and data to be collected to analyze demand and supply of skills across various sectors in the Caribbean.

“We developed this tool to pinpoint where specific gaps exist by allowing employers to list the skills they need and for the learning institutions to identify how many of those skills and to what degree they are supplying,” he explained.  “Instead of taking a macro-level approach, we wanted to be more precise and that came down to identifying target industries including automotive; financial services; food and beverage; hotel and tourism; manufacturing; renewable energy; telecommunications; and transport and logistics.”

Andre Lewis, President of the CCL, noted that COVID-19 was affecting workers and organizations across all Caribbean societies. He reiterated that strengthening social dialogue, maintaining employment status level, re-training and job preservation were essential to recover effectively. “Job preservation calls for a number of compromises between unions, workers and organizations. Not all employers and workplaces are impacted the same way. Therefore we need to have open dialogue and open discussion where there is a need to make changes,” he said.

“A decade of struggle and learning has been compressed into one year during the pandemic. How do we learn and not just go back to how things were before,” reflected Wayne Chen, President of the CEC. Among his main recommendations are growing the digital economy and adapting training to build baskets of skills for online work. “We have to start to think bigger. We need to accelerate the future of work to recognize that remote work is one of the solutions for the short, medium and long term if we are to rejoin the global economy and create a more prosperous future for all workers in the Caribbean,” he explained.

Groundbreaking efforts by employers and workers to eliminate gender-based violence (GBV) in Trinidad and Tobago was also featured during a presentation on the European Union-funded Spotlight Initiative. The collaboration was facilitated by the project partner agencies the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the ILO. 

“Through the partnership, the Employers Consultative Association of Trinidad and Tobago (ECATT) and the National Trade Union Centre (NATUC) have come on board to champion the prevention of gender-based violence,” explained Asiya Mohammed, GBV Specialist for the Spotlight Initiative at UNFPA.  “They are spearheading efforts to create awareness and develop measures that address the impact of family violence on the workplace. They are also taking action to ensure that workplaces are safe spaces by identifying and changing cultures that perpetuate gender-based violence, and by developing a model policy that will include a complaints mechanism, assessments and zero tolerance framework.”

Under the Spotlight Initiative, the ILO and UNFPA will soon launch a regional level partnership with the CCL and CEC to address GBV across the Caribbean.

During his closing remarks Lars Johansen, Deputy Director of the ILO Office for the Caribbean, emphasized the ILO’s commitment to continued support to social partners in the region as it recovers from the COVID-19 crisis. “Focusing on the areas discussed in today’s meeting, we will continue to provide support related to social protection, as well as for institutions, employers and workers to input data into the skills mismatch tool,” he said.  “The Spotlight Initiative is an important part of our work together and it provides a great opportunity to highlight the role of employers and workers to engage on this issue. We also hope the opportunity Spotlight provides to focus on the issue of gender-based violence, will contribute to the countries of the Caribbean ratifying the Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190) .”