PRIME?MINISTER?Freundel Stuart has lauded the strong relationship between labour, capital and the state.
Speaking last Monday evening at the signing of Protocol VI among the Social Partnership, the Prime Minister stated that the relationship established since 1993 had contributed to Barbados’ stable economic climate, especially during these trying times.
The protocol was signed at the trade unions May Day celebrations at Browne’s Beach, Bay Street, St Michael. In relation to the Social Partnership, Stuart pointed out that Barbados now had a model which was the envy of other countries across the world.
“Gone are the days when the relationship between labour and capital was an adversarial relationship . . . . We have now matured to the stage where labour and capital can sit down on the basis of trust on both sides, and on the basis of respect on both sides, and sort their difference out,” he stated.
He told the crowd of workers, assembled to participate in the celebrations, that this relationship was to be commended, since there were very few countries in the world that could boast of this kind of maturity and this kind of stability.
The Prime Minister congratulated the trade unions, especially the Barbados Workers’ Union, for taking the Social Partnership from a prices and incomes protocol to being “something in the nature of a social compact between labour, capital and the state”.
He also paid tribute to BWU general secretary Sir Roy Trotman, saying:?“I?do no think that the maturity evidenced in the relationship that now exists would be so evident without the contribution of Sir Roy.”
The Prime Minister did not leave out the employers in his address.
He stated that their cooperation and good faith had also contributed to the success of the Social Partnership.
President of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB), Cedric Murrell, also praised the tripartite model, as he recalled that it was conceptualised just after the global economic crisis of 1991. He stated that the issue of job retention was just as important now as it was back then.
“It is with this in mind that the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados, highly supportive of the emphasis that has bene placed on the role of micro, small and medium size enterprises in the productive sectors of our economy, recognize their potential to contribute to increased levels of investment and employment.”
