UNIONS SHOULD NEGOTIATE WORKER SHARE OWNERSHIP

In the case of public sector workers this would mean their having the proverbial stake in public and/or partly public sector companies, while with employees in the private sector this would result in their having shares in the companies for which they work. Specifically in the private sector this could be in the form of pension funds, with the funds invested in the relevant companies. The greater the productivity of the workers the faster the economic growth of their companies and the allied pension funds. In turn, with public sector workers, particularly those working for State Enterprises, in which their money in lieu of wage and salary increase would be invested, increased productivity would be reflected in the growth of their NEL shares.

I throw the above out for serious consideration by trade union leaders and the workers they seek to serve. My proposals come in the wake of clearly unrealistic demands by some of the union leaders, negotiating for public sector employees of the State, because of the appreciable rise in prices for crude and natural gas in the international market place, should grant distinctly inflated increases. That increases should be pegged to productivity has long been a standard for wage negotiations. Although additional considerations may arise, however the issue of productivity has been a common thread, in employer presentations, running through negotiations for decades.

I wish to make it clear that I am aware of the advantage taken by the employer class in post-emancipation colonial Trinidad and Tobago. Today, however, the burden of any industrial relations thrust should not be to unduly pressure an employer, whether it be the State or private sector enterprise. This, particularly, as the reality of the new world economic order of developed nations — unbridled free trade — quickly settles in.

But I am an old Socialist, an unrepentant Socialist at that, with no sympathy for either the extreme right or left wing, but rather with a desire to see a practical approach worked out for the benefit of the entire country. But for the employee class to benefit, it cannot see itself as apart from the rest.

Employees, if they are to make the fullest possible contribution to the public or private sector can not, arrogantly, see themselves as “we” and the rest as “they.” Indeed, the idea of workers having share ownership, if accepted, will place them firmly in the corporate house, a critical part of the structure and culture of ownership.

Meanwhile, there is another side to the question of share ownership which trade unions bargaining for workers in the private sector may wish to explore. It is the question of seeking to negotiate stock-ownership trusts. This is not uncommon in the United States, for example, where companies would act as guarantors for loans to workers from financial houses to enable them to acquire not insubstantial amounts of shares in their companies for their workers. Both sides benefit. The companies can expand and the workers, with their shareholding acting as a motivating factor, appreciate that if they optimise their productivity both the companies and they will grow together, economically and socially.

The days of trade union leaders thumping on the table during wage and/or salary negotiations, popular decades ago, have now given way in all too many cases to that of the trade unionists raising their voices at public demonstrations for the benefit of television cameras and, later, television audiences. What is needed today is not a few scattered stock ownership plans in a few Trinidad and Tobago companies, but a general approach to this concept of employee ownership by the majority of the country’s trade union leaders. Then, I wager, increased productivity by the new part owners, before upward adjustments in wage and salary structures, will be automatic. Central Bank Governor, Mr Ewart Williams, will have his wish.