by Patrick Hoyos

ONE OF THE FIRST casualties in the urgent mission to restructure the region's failed airlines has been trade union representation.

Getting rid of the powerful unions in BWIA must be the major reason for going to all the trouble of shutting down that company and reopening its successor a week later.

In fact, so detrimental to the health of BWIA are the unions seen to be that the company is willing to pay out up to US$50 million (according to the Trinidad Express) in "separation" packages to its employees and start fresh.

But, rightly, Carlos John, the leader of the ACAWU, the largest union in Bwee, says his union is going about its business offering to organise the workers in the new airline. We'll see how much of a "welcome aboard" he gets.

Over the past week, with talks underway between Caribbean Star and LIAT, we have heard rumours and denials on the same topic of whether any merged version of the two will have unions. It is said that Allen Stanford does not want unions in the merged company; I have not heard him say so, and LIAT is denying this will happen.

In Barbados, we have cases where employers are ignoring, or at least resisting, the will of many of their employees to have union representation. Apparently it is settled policy here that even when the labour office confirms a majority wish to be unionised, whether or not to recognise them is still the employer's call.

The law seems to vary from island to island, but we are among the few that don't have automatic recognition built in after a majority vote has been certified by the relevant authority. I guess that was one of the trade-offs made by the local unions to help the tripartite process get off the ground.

Meanwhile, the unions in Barbados are not as powerful as they once were – which is a good thing, because I believe they did wield too much power in days of yore. All that had changed under the social partnership protocol launched by the Sandiford administration and has continued through to the present.

With the fears of massive layoffs looming after September 11 and the move toward globalisation in the following few years (now a reversing trend, if you ask me), the local trade unions have found their influence on the public mind waning. I have heard that total union representation, including government employees, is less than 30 per cent here in Barbados, which really surprised me.

I believe trade unions are an indispensable part of any modern economy; but in the Caribbean, some owners of capital are trying hard to not just temper their influence but also dislodge unions from equal status around the negotiating table.

Or get rid of them entirely.

Why would there need to be a union-free airline in the Caribbean when unions are alive and well even at financially-strapped Chapter 11 companies like Delta and America West in the United States?

You don't have to like unions to respect the job they have to do. In fact, as an employee, the union is often the only place you can turn to to get your case taken up in the workplace, whether it is an individual problem or a group problem, and I don't only mean a dispute over better pay.

Unions today are much more holistically inclined, seeing the value of indirect benefits like training, special leave and so forth as being equal to the value of higher wages and salaries.

The sands between employers and unions are always shifting, but I don't support the idea of pushing the unions into the quicksand so that they might disappear completely.

Here's why I don't think employers should pursue any effort to "disappear" unions: you may think you are getting industrial or workplace peace by destroying the opposition, but in the long run you are only breeding discontent where it can hurt you the most. Getting rid of the union doesn't mean your workers suddenly have no problems and live happily ever after – they will always need representation, and replacement staff associations will not cut it.

Unless the union has the ultimate power of collective bargaining and the ability to strike, they are toothless wonders. The fact that they have often abused such power is inexcusable, just as it was inexcusable for those top executives to steal Enron into the ground.

I am not excusing bad or criminal behaviour on either side, but I am saying that unless you find some real power to give the unions to replace it, then they must retain the strike option.

It is ironic that the above is being written by yours truly, since my only experience with trade union negotiations was, shall we say, not good.

That was when I worked at another publishing "house" (guess which one); I found the whole thing going against my grain so much that I could not see myself doing that for a career.

But I learnt that there are professional negotiators who can do most of the legwork for management, so that you are not there to take the inevitable potshots yourself. I learnt that the hard way, and I humbly thank my teachers on the other side.

That experience aside, I have followed too many negotiations not only here but in the region and further abroad to realise that no matter how tough it can be to deal with a union, they can be vitally important as a force of reason and good in the workplace. In the past decade, as I noted earlier, the balance has shifted and the union leaders themselves have progressed, so it is usually much better to have them working with you than trying to decimate them for a few dollars more.

Maybe in the case of Bwee the unions were so entrenched that they had become the major block to restructuring, but I find it unthinkable that a new airline (or two) could take flight in the region with a policy of "flying without unions" built into their
basic MO.

If that is the reality we are heading for, you can bet we are really going to be flying into turbulence.