The World Economic Forum (WEF) 2018 Global Competiveness Index (GCI) ranks Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) as last out of 140 for Co-operation in Labour-employee relations. This article explores the role possibilities for trade unions given that we are in the early stages of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) which is poised to radically transform the workplace.
The labour movement in T&T has its genesis with the exodus from the plantations and is tethered to perennial sentiments of liberation and rebelliousness. Economists also reflect on the economic policies of the oil boom, which did not cater for decline/shocks in industry and helped to perpetuate conspicuous spending and reliance on subsidies. This backdrop offers some light on the divergence between competitiveness and standard of living, and perhaps a reason for the WEF 2017 GCI citing poor work ethic in national labour force as the most problematic factor for doing business in T&T.
In April 2017, BPTT pulled its fabrication of the Angelin platform out of La Brea, transferring the opportunity for foreign investment and job creation to Mexico. This move was primarily due to project risks stemming from industrial relations issues encapsulated by the widely publicised trade union sentiment — ‘take your platform and go’. This is among many examples typifying why perhaps T&T remains uncompetitive. We can speculate a culture of instant gratification and entitlement however, let’s look at the data analysis.
Further analysis of the WEF raw data shows T&T as having the greatest difference in Flexibility (F) vs Meritocracy & Incentivisation (M&I) rankings for countries where M&I outranks F as represented in the scatter gram, Figure 1 below.
Figure 1 – The 12 Labour sub-indices are categorized into two indicators (Flexibility vs Meritocracy & Incentivization) by the WEF GCI appendix. The author aggregates the sub-indices along these categories before ranking them. The raw data can be found at http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-report-2018/downloads/
This visual suggests that as M&I increases, so does F as shown by the general trend line (downward from right to left). For countries lying below the trend line, T&T has the greatest variance, i.e., the difference between T&T’s F and M&I rankings is 88; while for example, Namibia and China show only variances of 24 and 14 respectively. This disproportionate inflexibility, coupled with T&T having the lowest rank (140/140) for Co-operation in Labour employee relations, suggest the need for a change in perspective for trade unions. Consideration should be given to the role of the trade union being repurposed towards moderating disproportionate expectations in the wake of the 4IR. The 4IR forecasts that global market forces could determine competitive wages and working conditions by rationing the new skills, and the flexibility and the cooperativeness required.
The WEF describes the 4IR as 'a global transformation characterised by the convergence of digital, physical, and biological technologies’ and postulates that this technological leap is just the beginning. Experts suggest unparalleled disruption to humanity itself, leaving legal and social systems to play catch up. Various sources all converge on the same prediction that compared to the automation of manual labour in the First Industrial Revolution (1IR)/ Second Industrial Revolution (2IR) and the partial automation of clerical and skilled functions in the Third Industrial Revolution (3IR) (digital revolution), the 4IR will eliminate many traditional jobs including highly skilled professions through artificial intelligence and new business models.
The WEF 2018 report on Future of Jobs paints a similar picture on how accelerated technology adoption and the need for specialist roles that require a flexible fusion of various skill sets are going to revolutionise the way employers and employees interact. This, along with large scale automation and disruptive business models, give way to the reskilling an up-skilling imperative focusing on high performers, rendering overall strategies for addressing skills gaps insufficient. Apart from the new technical skills required, cognitive and behavioural competencies such as creativity, initiative, flexibility, social influence, service orientation and complex problem solving will be in high demand. Moreover, the WEF points out the shifting geography of production, distribution and value chains where most of the surveyed respondents indicate the priority for determining geography is the availability of skilled talent, followed by labour costs. Technology and new business models render it simple to change the geography of value chains which exacerbates the risk of having a workforce whose skills and behaviours are not aligned to the 4IR.
With respect to trade unions, there has been a significant decline in membership in advanced economies over the last three decades. This coincides with the 3IR. Extrapolating this to the 4IR, many contend that trade unions may lose relevance due to the impermanence and highly skilled nature of jobs in advanced economies. T&T’s behavioural and technical readiness for the 4IR is reflected in several low- ranking indices for the innovation pillar and our low degree of customer orientation (134/137 countries) on the WEF 2017 GCI.
As a nation, we are running out of time to start preparing for the impact. Government, trade unions, companies, educators and individuals all have shared responsibilities to ensure that T&T is prepared. These efforts and responsibilities must be aligned and coordinated. Here, trade unions play an important role in aligning all stakeholders as they straddle the space and narrative between government, companies and individuals.
Trade unions should proactively include in their focus not only working conditions and wages, but re-skilling and up-skilling of employees, work ethic and innovative systems to ensure that their members are employable with relevant skills in fluid and dynamic environments. Moreover, the narrative must be all-inclusive and should consider the prosperity of business, industry and | May 2019 energy.tt • @ttenergychamber 12 opinion Trade unions and the future of work Figure 1 – The 12 Labour sub-indices are categorised into two indicators (Flexibility vs Meritocracy & Incentivisation) by the WEF GCI appendix. The author aggregates the sub-indices along these categories before ranking them. The raw data can be found at http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitivenessreport-2018/downloads/ nation as a whole. The following four roles of trade unions are proffered.
1. Act as lead liaisons amongst government, industry and researchers to set national policies aligned to the 4IR: a) Engage researchers and industry heads to understand global trends and forecasted shifts in labour demand and supply over the strategic horizon.
b) From this understanding, engage government and technocrats to build out the strategic plan, i.e., national objectives and initiatives as it pertains to negating the 4IR and associated risks. c) Based on the strategy, formulate national reference policies and guidelines to which all collective agreements and industrial matters should align to.
2. Continue as representatives of workers: a) Represent workers in industrial relations matters and collective bargaining, while factoring competiveness of the local labour market and industry in the wider global arena. b) Align collective agreements to national labour strategy and policies geared towards navigating the 4IR. Work with industry representatives to ensure that collective agreements facilitate continued competitiveness.
3. Broker or own educational and vocational programmes and schemes for the transfer and mobility of labour aligned to the 4IR: a) Identify requirements for re-skilling and up-skilling, and liaise with educators and training institutes to build strategic workforce plans for companies. b) Work with employers to categorise workers with respect to tenure, risk for redundancy and learnability. Build guidelines in collective agreements that allow for ethical yet feasible and flexible ways of transitioning workers into new roles within, as well as outside of the industry. c) Work with government agencies to develop national professional bodies that regulate and certify existing and emerging professions in order to maintain credibility and competiveness of the local workforce and industries in the global arena.
4. Become an agent for culture transformation and knowledge management: a) Lead constructive narrative and engage the youth in dialogue that promotes self-reflection, personal responsibility, delayed gratification and industriousness, i.e., a work ethic aligned to the 4IR. b) Provide the wider public with information about the 4IR and its impact on the entire workforce.