Your turn, T&T unions

Through the glare of recent equally headline-worthy developments are the ongoing contentions by the country’s labour unions regarding proposed changes in NIS pension benefits from age 60 to 65.

The measure is being flagged by the NIB as an issue related to the very sustainability of the 50-year-old system.

The 10th Actuarial Review of the scheme was conducted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) which delivered an undeniably grim outlook that was long anticipated by experts in the field.

Competent analysis of this has already been forthcoming and the views and information are available for further insights. This is not the focus of today’s contribution from me.

But, believe me, from my own experience, all of this is unlikely to capture the urgent imaginations of young members of our labour force, even more so that the pandemic era has served to accelerate growth in the informal sector and in individual contract work.

The thing is, there is no haste by a majority of our workforce to pay attention to this.

For this reason, the efforts by labour unions to assure the multilateral nature of the conversation are extremely important.

Had it not been for the fact of collective bargaining, and a notion of formal worker representation, our workforce would have remained largely passive, outside of the efforts of trade unionists, and some employers, at this time.

The force of other arguments, on behalf of the workforce, is lost in the partisan battlefield in the form of apportioned blame, including from those who once ran the show.

The fact is, sounding an urgent alarm has never been found to be politically convenient – even when experts assigned to the NIB had waved huge, red banners.

It is the unions that are now called upon to lay rational challenges to the assertions of the ILO Review and to propose sensible alternatives.

Now, it is eminently understandable if you are not confident about this – given the movement’s recent pandemic credentials. But I believe they are indeed capable of outsourcing the expertise to contribute meaningfully.

They would need to realise that the work needed to dissect the issue requires an outlook that relies heavily on skills outside of the existing repertoire.

As a supporter of the movement and past member of one, the performance of many unions in the face of the pandemic was appalling and embarrassing, especially those that actively promoted COVID-denial and anti-vax agendas.

Meanwhile, the ILO’s May 5 Social Dialogue Report has stressed the importance of tripartite arrangements that reinforce enlightened dialogue and, even more, that the process of collective bargaining is an invaluable contributor to equitable outcomes.

The fact is, globally, the changing world of work – especially in the face of lockdowns and work-from-home arrangements almost everywhere – requires a much higher level of socially coherent aspirations and a willingness to change.

I have employed this space more than once in recent months to highlight the dramatic shortcomings of both our public and private sectors on this question. Modern digital facades exist to reinforce archaic processes and structures.

Both private entrepreneurs and public sector bosses appear resistant to and incapable of leading the required transitions. Much of the onus now needs to turn to the influence of workers’ representatives who understand the inevitable march of modernity.

The unions need to clinically assess the demands of telework, where they are relevant, and onsite work where digitally transformed processes are required as effective instruments to achieve greater efficiency and productivity.

How much time, however, has been spent by our unions on determining the degree to which there have been asymmetries in the ability of workers to interface remotely with their places of employment, customers, and suppliers?

It’s two years in. Have the unions been studying this? Have they surveyed rises and falls in productivity? Are union leaders believers in the inevitability of digital transformation?

One of the points made by the ILO Social Dialogue Report is that pandemic conditions have served to exacerbate unevenness across countries, communities and sectors.

Collective bargaining, the ILO insists, “has played a role in mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on employment and earnings, helping to cushion some of the effects on inequality while reinforcing the resilience of enterprises and labour markets.”

Put another way, more productive union activity not less, is required to take us to better days. Please, dear comrades, help us to have the required confidence in you to achieve such objectives. As it stands, too many of us have good reason to be sceptical.