11th Round Table for Caribbean Employers' Organizations

The Bureau for Employers' Activities (ACTEMP) of the International Labour Organization (ILO) sponsored the 11th Round Table for Caribbean Employers' Organizations at St. Georges, Grenada from the 15th to the 17th of April, 2008. The Employers' Organizations Round Table is held every three years. This year's triennial event was hosted by the Grenada Employers Confederation with the theme, "Impact of Caribbean Regional Integration on Employers and their Organizations".

National Employers Organizations from fifteen of the twenty-one countries in the region attended the Round Table, along with representatives of the regional and international ILO Offices, the International Organisation of Employers (IOE), and other resource persons and consultants. Gordon Rodland, Director of the Bahamas Employers Confederation, attended the Round Table as The Bahamas delegate.

It was noted that with globalization bringing regional and international integration, there has emerged a new business operating environment. Employers' organizations realize that this has thrust heavy demands upon them. Yet many employers are not fully attuned to the consequences required to withstand the major shifts in their operating environments brought about by political, social, and economic developments. Even within the Caribbean, the responses to the call for regional integration are still outside the reach of many.

Mr. Rodland's report is available on BECon's website:
http://bahamasemployers.org/documents/ilo/0804roundtable.pdf

Effect of Illegal Activity

The principle of "cause and effect" is that everything that happens must have a cause. It is safe to say that when persons commit illegalities without repercussion the effect is that more illegalities will be committed in the future. Persons who commit crimes (once identified), should be arrested, charged, tried, convicted (if found guilty) and then sentenced. From a social point of view, one of the major reasons for punishing a person convicted of a crime is that the punishment acts as a deterrent to others and will have the effect of preventing other crimes in the future.

In our last News Bulletin it was shown that the strike action taking place at Morton Bahamas Limited is illegal. It was good to read that a man was arrested for the firebombing of the executive guest house and hopefully a successful prosecution will result in conviction and during the sentencing phase an appropriate punishment will be meted out. It is further hoped that the police are continuing their investigation into the sabotaged pumps and will eventually be able to make an arrest in that case too. However the question still remains, why are these employees still continuing with an illegal strike?

The illegal industrial action taken by employees of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company was blocked by the company when BTC was successful in obtaining an injunction through the Supreme Court. Justice John Lyons issued an order barring the two unions representing workers at BTC from interfering with or impeding the employees of the company from engaging in their occupations. If the unions are found guilty of breaching the order they would be in contempt of court and be liable to imprisonment, fines or the seizure of assets. The threat of these penalties kept the unions from committing further illegal actions.

However the question still remains, how will union officials and BTC employees be effected by their participation in causing roads in New Providence and Grand Bahama to be blocked? It was reported in Saturday's newspapers that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, The Hon. Brent Symonette, said that appropriate action will be taken against those involved in the illegal BTC strike. He further stated that "the public is not prepared to accept those actions anymore". You are quite correct, Minister, and we will indeed "stay tuned" in anticipation of appropriate action being taken.

Public Policy Study and Essay on Bahamian Education

The April 2008 Public Policy Study, "Bahamian Educational Achievement… Too few 'As', Too many 'Us' and What to do", addresses the present state of "Educational Achievement" in The Bahamas with the hope of raising awareness and producing a public consensus that will support change because substantive and constructive change is so needed.

The July 2008 Public Policy Essay, "The Importance of Quality Teachers", points out that there are grave economic consequences for students who fail as their collective failure deprives The Bahamas of the skills needed to fuel sustained economic prosperity. It also reveals the shortest answer to the question "how do the world's best-performing school systems come out on top" is that they are more effective in getting more talented people to become teachers, developing these teachers into better instructors, and ensuring that these instructors deliver consistently for every child in the system.

The author of these Public Policy documents, Ralph J. Massey, Economist, was a founding member of the Nassau Institute and since late 2004 has been a contributor to the work of the Coalition for Education Reform.

Bahamians concerned about the future of our country can access these documents from the Coalition for Education Reform page on BECon's website:
http://bahamasemployers.org/documents/coalitionforeducation/index.shtml

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