Public Policy and Consensus Building in the Caribbean Workplace: Barbados

• Author: Lawrence Nurse and Simon Best
• Pages: 197-216

197

CHALLENGE OF WORKPLACE GOVERNANCE

Public Policy and Consensus

Building in Workplace

Management: Barbados

Important strides have been made to promote the dignity of, and respect

for, human labour in the region through the practice of adversarial workplace

politics. A concern for due process, the practice of limited forms of industrial

democracy and the improvement of the economic welfare and social economy

of workers are some of its results. This practice has also made an important

contribution to the accomplishment of managerial objectives of efficiency

and effectiveness. In some cases, adversarial industrial relations have forced

management to rationalise and improve operations, exercise greater caution

in dealing with labour and take steps to humanise the working environment.

Adversarial workplace politics have therefore played a very important

role in helping trade unions, workers and employers accomplish some of

their respective objectives, irrespective of the degree of public approval of the

methods and institutions that support the practice. It has been employed as a

way of managing the workplace, even if some of its outcomes have not generally

been endorsed.

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There is also a downside to the balance sheet. Important gains have been

made but at a price, including the cost of strikes and other forms of interrupted

production. The workplace has become a “contested terrain” on which unions

and management vie for control over the labour process. At the same time,

trade union practice has, in some cases, tended to exercise a dampening effect

on productivity through the resistance of trade unionists to the abandonment

or modification of some work methods and practices. Those methods and

practices might have been appropriate at an earlier historical juncture but, in

some cases, they exercise a brake on productivity and efficiency in the modern

workplace. Change is resisted principally because of its manner of introduction,

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198 HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

presumed impact on the organisation of work and tradeunion fears about job

security.

By “hiding” behind the “management’s rights” clause found in collective

agreements, management, too, has either restricted or unnecessarily blunted

the influence of the trade union in critical areas of managerial decision making.

Both tendencies have resulted in costs and/or uncaptured opportunities logical

outcomes of adversarial practice and industrial conflict under capitalism. The

paradox of adversarial workplace politics forces us to reflect on the nature of

the political and economic environment that supports and nurtures that

practice. It also exposes some of the contradictions that inhere in the practice

of workplace relations within such an environment.

Managerial philosophy and corporate culture constitute an important

bedrock for the development of employment policy and human resource

strategies that simultaneously contribute to business purpose and employee

motivation and commitment. Corporate culture in a number of Caribbean

organisations, however, might very well be one of the principal obstacles to

developing employee commitment and increasing productivity. It has not

generally favoured the adoption of human resource strategies that produce a

commitment orientation where workers’ behaviour and performance are

informed by a strong sense of commitment to the goals of the organisation.

Instead, workers are expected to do as they are told and their ideas about

work improvement are not generally sought. Employment policy and practice

are guided by a rigid adherence to rules and regulations. Supervisory

management, authority structures and disciplinary systems play a critical role

in enforcing managerial priorities. Corporate culture and employment policy

bear the imprimatur of a control orientation.

Within such a milieu, more emphasis has been placed on economic

exchange than on relationship management. Workers have grown to accept

wage increases as a matter of entitlement based on seniority, increases in the

cost of living, union demands and the ability of the organisation to pay.

Through the practice of collective bargaining, and its extensions (contract

administration and grievance management) and, as a result of their influence

as lobbyists for the passage of protective labour legislation, trade union leaders

generally believed that their obligation to their members was being adequately

discharged. They cannot be blamed for adopting such an approach to labour-

management relations and workplace practice. If they did not seek a larger

role in the management of Caribbean enterprises, it is partly because of

managerial insistence on its prerogatives and “right to manage” and managerial

unwillingness to involve the trade union in enterprise decision making outside

of that required for the ‘normal’ practice of collective bargaining. It is also