The CCL Executive should dissociate itself from this statement

May 29, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The statement issued by the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL) calling on undocumented persons in Barbados to regularise their status is one of the most anti-working class statements ever issued by any labour organization.
It is a disgrace that the CCL which is supposed to advance the interests of workers throughout the Caribbean could have issued such a statement.

Those trade unions throughout the Caribbean that are in any way associated with the CCL should quickly dissociate themselves from this statement which does no good for workers in the Caribbean and which represents a misreading of what is taking place within Barbados and its implications for regional integration.
The deepening of regional integration can no longer be about increased trade. Deepening the process of regional integration involves moving towards a single market and economy, and more importantly, to the free movement of persons. Only until such time as nationals from any country within the region can freely move and work to and within other territories within the region, only then can we claim that we have made significant progress in creating this single market and economy.

The Caribbean Congress of Labour would expose itself to being accused of living in the Stone Age if it failed to accept that labour is a factor of production, and therefore, just as how other factors of production such as goods and services must be allowed to move freely within the region, so too must labour, if it is to be accorded its proper importance.
How therefore can a regional labour grouping such as the CCL totally marginalise the workers of the Caribbean by its misguided statement on the Barbados issue?
I urge the CCL executive to seriously consider the implications of its recent statement on undocumented nationals in Barbados and the implications it will have for workers throughout the region. That statement needs to be recalled lest it causes further embarrassment to the already struggling labour movement in the region.

The problem is not that the CCL is trying to argue of simply some Caribbean Governments not discharging their responsibilities to create jobs for their citizens.
Even if this statement means that governments should be creating an environment for job-creating rather than actual job creation itself, it would still be out of line because no country, however rich, and not even Barbados which has always had a high ranking in the human development index, can avoid immigration.
What the CCL is suggesting is that countries should be concentrating on finding jobs for their people so that they do not immigrate.
This flies in the face of the history of the United States of America and so many other countries such as Australia which was built on immigration. It was immigrants from all over the world who came in search of betterment and freedom which has made the United States of America powerful.
Yet it is only now when there is a demographic shift that we are seeing the US cracking down on illegal immigrants even though it acknowledges that it is immigrants who continue to play an important role in the economy.

Guyana itself allowed immigration from Barbados after the emancipation of slavery. And our nationals have made an important contribution to the development of Barbados over the years.
A serious assessment of the role of immigration would, I believe, establish that without the skills provided by Guyanese, the construction sector in Barbados would have collapsed by now.
The CCL should therefore be ashamed of making this argument about countries absconding from their responsibilities of creating employment for their people. That is hardly the point because there is absolutely nothing wrong, from a working class standpoint, with workers migrating to countries where they would be better rewarded, and it is my contention that even if things were bright and beautiful in Guyana we would still have migration because people will always, and should always, seek betterment for themselves and family.

Right now the government of Botswana has advertised for a number of technical persons. And I am sure that many Guyanese would apply, even though most of them can stay right in Guyana and do well.
They will apply because it is rational for someone, however comfortable he or she is, to want to do better.
What the CCL should be doing, instead of making these misguided statements, is to argue for the free movement of labour in the Caribbean. This is what should be happening. Persons should be free to go and work in other countries if we are indeed serious about regional integration, and the labour movement should be encouraging governments to ease their restrictions on this free movement of labour.
Instead, it makes the most ridiculous assertions that free movement under the CSME must be done within the context of a regional economic plan.

The CCL should be urging countries such as Barbados to grant greater work permits to immigrants so that they can be documented since this would be supportive of the goal of the free movement of labour throughout the Caribbean.
This is what it should be doing. Instead its call for undocumented nationals to put their status right is akin to telling them to be prepared to be deported.