Labour laws cannot prevent job losses says ILO rep

Job losses will happen as it is an inevitable feature of economies, said Claudia Coenjarts, Director of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Decent Work Team and Office for the Caribbean.

“What is needed, is to have the tools in place to make the transition easier. They include social protection, dialogue, skills training and placement of workers...Instead of looking what the opponent is doing wrong, it is important to turn into introspection to ask , ‘How can I and my organisation change?’,” Coenjarts suggested.

She made the comments yesterday at the Tripartite Stakeholder Consultation on the Retrenchment and Severance Benefits Act, Chapter 88:13, held at the National Energy Skills Centre, Couva.

Among those in attendance were: Labour and Small Enterprise Development Minister, Jennifer Baptiste-Primus; Senior Legal Officer, Sangeeta Boondoo; BIGWU’s President, Vincent Cabrera; and other representatives from various organisations among them NATUC, FITUN and the TT Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

Coenjarts emphasised the importance of strong labour market and the availability of social plans, re-employment, retraining and outplacement. It is also important, she added, that funding is available for these.

“We have heard about unemployment insurance broached more often in recent times. I believe it is a feature that T&T can start thinking about, maybe following the steps taken by the Bahamas Barbados, the only two countries in the Caribbean,” Coenjarts suggested. Addressing the gathering , she noted that if such suggestion “sounds too ambitious and the choice is to remain more narrow in the context specifically of insolvency”, there is a possibility of setting up a Wage Guarantee Fund for that purpose as laid out in Convention 173.

Coenjarts explained: “ If we have to win this battle of people losing jobs and then finding themselves on the brink of poverty also leading to grave social and psychological problems.”