It is perhaps a tribute to Barbados’ stability in employment matters that the recent media event to present the new chairman of the BPSA was, in a word, boring.
Another word that comes readily to mind is “platitudinous” – referring to remarks “used too often to be interesting or thoughtful” (according to my dictionary. Yes, I had to look it up).
However, the breakfast itself was really good.
All right, I am being cynical. But this is a key post of the social partnership – the employers’ seat, no less – that was inducting a new representative. That person will have to represent the often diverse interests of the many business organizations under the umbrella of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA).
The new chairman is John Williams, chief executive officer of Cave Shepherd & Co. Ltd.
Applauding his crowning achievement were representatives from the other two sections of the social partner triumvirate: Cedric Murrell, chairman of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations (CTUSAB) (the union seat), and Minister of Labour Dr Esther Byer-Suckoo representing Government.
Also in attendance was the past chairman of CTUSAB, Sir Roy Trotman, who was one of the founding fathers with Sir John Stanley Goddard and Prime Minister Erskine Sandiford of the very partnership which has helped us keep relative industrial peace in Barbados for the last 20 years.
And, of course, the outgoing BPSA head, the ever affable Ben Arrindell.
Fiery speeches
With a line-up of this calibre, one could only have imagined the fiery speeches awaiting utterance as the endless chicken-or-the-egg debate got rolling.
Union parter: “We need raises.”
Employer partner: “No, that will cause prices to rise and inflation.”
Union partner: “Then we will need more increases to keep pace with inflation.”
Government partner: “We can’t raise taxes any more.” (Sorry, that one was wishful scriptwriting).
Sometimes I miss the good old days when a fellow they sometimes nicknamed “Trottie” marched them up a hill and marched them down again.
Of course, not a word of that sort was heard that beautiful Bajan morning.
Nowadays they all just get along so well, it makes me suspicious. Or maybe that’s just for the media and they go at each other tooth and nail behind closed doors. We can only hope.
The best speech of the morning came from Sir Roy, no longer the CTUSAB representative.
Maybe he felt he could speak out without being considered undiplomatic, although fear of being undiplomatic has never been Sir Roy’s problem, and I mean that as a genuine compliment.
He called for a “full series of meetings”, starting with one attended by the Prime Minister along with the social partners and “open to the public”, There was a good chance of coming out of the recession, he said, but “everybody has to be on board” and “we must speak about it now”.
The respected trade unionist continued: “Today we face a crisis needing the same energy and focus and dedication to the cause” as was shown when the BPSA was formed in 1991. However, he said, the economic crisis must be faced with the social partners working as a “national team” and “realizing our interdependence on each other and responsibility to the country.”
Main difference
Sir Roy said the main difference between the crisis of 1991 and that of 2011 was that back then,“we were faced with the challenge of whether to deal with an errant schoolteacher or cooperate”.
He said that the labour movement did not try to determine whether then Prime Minister Erskine Sandiford was indeed an errant schoolteacher, but to instead focus on “how to overcome what we termed an invasion of Barbados by foreign interests”.
Then he knocked me for six by saying: “Some wanted me to take over the Government of the country.” You can never predict what you will hear from Sir Roy Trotman.
Anyway, after all the speeches I must admit I wasn’t much wiser about how to solve the country’s problems. My gloom deepened after witnessing with my ears one of the strangest speeches I ever heard, the one from the Minister of Labour.
The only note I have on her is this quote: “We need to clearly state our objectives going forward.” Good, I thought, fingers ready to bash away at my laptop. Let’s hear them.
Dr Byer-Suckoo then went on to say a word of appreciation about outgoing chairman Arrindell, and noted that he once told her that he was born in St Kitts and once very long ago had such a bad experience at the airport with local immigration officials that he considered never coming back.
But she was grateful he did because of his sterling contribution through the years and so on.
All well and good. But it soon became evident that the goodly doctor had become stuck in the minutiae of cross-Caribbean culture and families, perhaps because she said that some people thought she was from Guyana but really she was born here but has a lot of family (I think) in both Trinidad and Guyana.
The topic was so fascinating to her that she devoured it down to the very bone and, it seemed to me, forgot all about the purpose of the event, since I couldn’t remember hearing her go back to those priorities going forward.
Her speech, while laborious, did not augur well for my opinion of her as a Minister of Labour.
Anyway, twenty years on, the social partnership for which the BPSA was formed has become so institutionalised that it no longer carries the drama I once associated with it.
However, its very existence and the “protocols” it has signed over those years are among the very few safety nets keeping us from an economic free fall.
The social partnership, the protocols and the kinder, gentler working relationship they have engendered between Government, business and labour have been held up as an example to show the world what can be achieved for the good of a country.
So in the case of the BPSA, maybe boring is good.
Pat Hoyos is a long-standing journalist and publisher of the Broad Street Journal.