• Council creation ‘leading recommendation’

• Nation has to be ‘happy place for business’

• ‘On doorstep’ of second Decent Work plan

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The government was yesterday urged to make creation of a National Productivity Council “top priority” in its efforts to “get the country up and running again” following COVID-19’s devastation.

Peter Goudie, the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation’s (BCCEC) labour specialist, told Tribune Business that the council’s long-awaited establishment was “one of the biggest recommendations in front of government right now”.

Confirming that the call had come from the National Tripartite Council, the body that addresses all labour-related matters, Mr Goudie warned The Bahamas will struggle to attract the investment it needs to revive post-pandemic unless it becomes “a happy place to do business” through improvements in worker productivity and the ease of doing business.

Formation of a National Productivity Council, which Mr Goudie branded “long overdue”, also figured prominently in yesterday’s conference on The Bahamas’ efforts to become a regional “trailblazer” by becoming the first Caribbean nation to enact a “second generation” Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP).

Robert Farquharson, the National Tripartite Council’s chairman, confirmed during the Zoom meeting called to discuss the latest draft that this nation is “on the doorstep of becoming the first Caribbean country to sign a second generation DWCP” with the next version set to be a final one that will be presented to the Government for its approval.

And Mr Goudie, representing employers and Chamber members in the discussions, subsequently told Tribune Business that recommendations for the National Productivity Council’s founding have already been submitted to the Government.

Such a body will oversee and co-ordinate The Bahamas’ efforts to improve worker output, and related skills training and development, an area that has long been recognised as a major economic and social weakness. “That is one of our biggest recommendations in front of the Government right now,” Mr Goudie said.

“We [the National Tripartite Council] are the ones that are behind setting up a National Productivity Council. We’ve done a lot of work on it, and have had the research done. Barbados and Jamaica both have productivity councils and have offered to help us.

“It’s a top priority on our list. We have to hope that it will increase worker output and also improve our ease of doing business. That’s one of the biggest things to come out of the group I was in today. We have to get back to making it easier to do business in this country, and if we have more productive workers it can help those coming in,” Mr Goudie added.

“One of the Government’s biggest priorities is to bring in more investment, and until we make this country a happy place to do business we’re going to have trouble bringing investment in.”

Mr Goudie explained that the National Productivity Council will function as an arm of the Tripartite body, and said: “The main thing here is to get people schooled and skilled so they can more productive. And getting more employers to co-operate on making employees more productive and, therefore, giving them better skills. 

“It’s got to work on both sides of the fence. If we want people to be more productive then we’ve got to help them get better skills and education. It’s [the Productivity Council] way overdue. I can tell you, it’s way overdue. We need it as soon as we can, and it’s a top priority at the National Tripartite Council.”

The Decent Work Country Programme presentation also featured a National Apprenticeship Programme as a core component for improving labour skills, especially among younger workers, and Mr Goudie said this is an initiative that The Bahamas “needs to get back on the rails”.

He added that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), private sector agencies and the Government had “done a huge amount of work” on the apprenticeship plan and the “skills needed in certain industries” only for the project to be postponed, and allocated funding diverted, by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We need to get that back up and running,” Mr Goudie said. “It’s hugely impactful because people need to learn what jobs are out there and what they can do. We don’t need to talk enough about having enough job skills and education.

“That, to me, is where our priorities lie. We need to get the population properly educated with job skills we can use. To me, that’s the bottom line in the whole thing. Let’s get everybody up and ready to participate in the economy.”

Bahamian employers have long complained about the public education system’s ‘D-’ average output, arguing that they are unable to find workers with the necessary skills, attitude and even socialisation to enable their businesses to function with the desired level of efficiency and competence.

Improved workforce output and skills, which a National Productivity Council will be charged with driving, are also critical for The Bahamas’ economic competitiveness as it attempts to revive and rebuild following COVID-19.

“We really need to get something going so we can get this country up and running,” Mr Goudie said. “I think it’s just a matter of us focusing on what we need to do over the next five years to bring us back.”

Mr Farquharson, meanwhile, said The Bahamas’ latest Decent Work Country Programme draft was the product of six-nine months’ worth of work, with six to seven weeks of intense consultation with the private sector, trade unions, civil society and other stakeholders having taken place since February 2021.

While assisted by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and UK-based consultants, the National Tripartite Council chair said the initiative was Bahamian-owned and led. “I want to stress how important it is for the DWCP to be a Bahamian thing,” he added, pledging that the initiative will “be implemented for Bahamians by Bahamians”.

Dennis Zulu, the ILO’s Caribbean director, stressed that the DWCP’s implementation will enable The Bahamas to meet its national development goals as well as the sustainable development objectives set by the United Nations (UN).

“Given the impact of COVID-19 on the socio economics of the world, some of the activities planned in the DWCP have a direct bearing on the efforts of The Bahamas to build back better,” Mr Zulu added.

Sam Kelly, of UK-based Ergon Associates, a labour, employment and international development consultant, said the new DWCP has three pillars - job and skills development that enhances the labour force, and enables entrepreneurs to create “decent employment opportunities” leading to sustainable economic growth; social dialogue; and improved social and labour market governance.

The former, Mr Kelly said, involved enacting both the National Productivity Council and National Apprenticeship Programme, while also creating a Labour Market Information Data and Analysis System that will supply policymakers with better, real time workforce data to facilitate better decision-making.

“Social dialogue” focuses on building more “harmonious industrial relations”, and strengthening dispute resolution processes at both the national and company level to relieve pressure on the courts. The DWCP calls for the National Tripartite Council to set-up sub-committees to tackle specialist issues, such as occupational health and safety (OSH) and maritime employment.

Finally, strengthening labour market governance calls for building up the Department of Labour’s workplace inspection capacity such that it is not simply detecting violations of safety laws but actively training employers and their staff in how to avoid them. Laws relating to the employment of persons under 18, foreign and migrant workers, and dealing with workplace violence and harassment are all part of the package.