Trade Unions and the Transformation to a New Caribbean Workplace: Confronting the Challenges of Globalisation

• Author: Danny Roberts
• Pages: 287-295

287

TRADE UNIONS AND WORKERS PROTECTION

Trade Unions and the Transformation

to a New Caribbean Workplace:

Confronting the Challenges

of Globalisation

The discussion in this chapter will be divided into three broad areas. First,

I will undertake a brief examination of some aspects of the changing

work environment, focusing on employment prospects, job security, and social

protection. This will be done against the background of the challenges faced

in postulating an overall development strategy in the vortex of a globalising

world economy. Secondly, an attempt will be made to explore the options for

meeting the challenges posed by this global transformation, and to do so from

a decidedly trade union perspective. Thirdly, the Jamaican experience will be

used to provide the kind of prototype, which demonstrates the success in

building partnership through an acceptance of certain concepts and values.

The global matrix is, indeed, the starting point of any discussion on issues

regarding industrial relations, once its remit is clearly understood as dealing

with social welfare and social order. For it is much more than the "interest of

workers, the conditions of their labour, and the remuneration of their effort"

with which the trade unions are concerned. They are equally concerned with

"the efficiency of the organisations, the control of labour, and the resolution

of conflict" (Blyton and Turnbull, 1994).

In that regard, the reconfiguration of the workplace, and the attendant

risks to the traditional norms of labour relations, could very well strangle both

unions and enterprises if a new paradigm is not forged to safeguard against

labour exploitation and inequalities, while promoting economic prosperity

and growth.

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Like the industrial revolution, today's great transformation has raised the

issue of work because work is inextricably bound up in trade. The introduction

of new technology often has a profound effect on work. Already we have seen

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