A call has been made for CARICOM leaders to have binding clauses placed on the resolutions they make to ensure that they follow through with them.
This call was made by a participant in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conference that was held at Hilton Barbados over the past two days. Belinda Wilson, who is President of The Bahamas Union of Teachers, made a number of suggestions for what should come out of the conference of labour stakeholders from around the Caribbean. These comments came during a panel discussion with the theme, “Taking advantage of Tripartism and Social Dialogue to support regional integration and enhance its benefits”.
“The observation that I have is that from this forum, we should present a position paper to each of our Ministers of Labour. Coming out of this forum, we should also move a resolution that we present for the next CARICOM meeting … we should list what items we would like to be discussed, they should be placed on the agenda; and my colleague from St. Vincent was saying something about the EU having a binding clause on their resolutions, I think we should also have something that deals with that… There should be a binding clause as to when you make an agreement, what should happen when you do not keep that agreement,” Wilson stated.
Referring to Wilson’s suggestions and to Grenada’s Minister of Labour, Glynis Roberts’ comments about the indecisiveness of governments and other actors, Barbados’ Minister of Labour, Dr. Esther Byer-Suckoo, said that having resolutions may force these entities to deal with their issues.
“Once we ask them to have these resolutions, to include these resolutions, then perhaps we would be forcing them to deal with their issues and so address regional integration if we are indeed to move to a single market and a single economy, with a single vision by 2015 or sometime thereafter,” Byer-Suckoo stated. (AN)
