Business consultant warns of ‘water-bottle’ culture in labour

BUSINESS consultant Maxine Attong says labour is treated like a commodity in TT, and can be best described as ‘water-bottle culture’.

She was addressing the Association of Professional Engineers of TT (APETT) conference on re-booting the economy at Cara Suites, Claxton Bay, San Fernando, on Friday.

“We know what the labour situation is like right now in TT,” she said, as she referred to the closure of state-owned refinery Petrotrin. “This shows labour is not exactly in a stable position in TT. Listen to the language that is used about labour right now. It’s a buyers’ market. You can get still resources at a cheap rate. There is a clutter of labour on the market,” she said.

She also said it did not appear that “we are talking about the people.” Instead, this, Attong said, is treating labour as a commodity to be bought traded and sold. “My fear is are we developing a ‘water-bottle’ culture around labour,” she said. She explained that this meant, “We open a bottle of water,drink of it and crumple it before throwing it away.” Citing reports from the Industrial Court, Attong said there were 1,200 cases before the court. “Five hundred and sixty one of those were wrongful dismissals. Wrongful dismissal could be a matter of perspective and the labour laws in TT are very descriptive as to how to dismiss someone.”

“My fears about water-bottle culture around labour, are well founded. When we talk about labour as a commodity, it brings with it certain behaviour. If you treat me like a ‘thing’, I will show up as a ‘thing’. A lot of people may be creative in their lives, but when they come through the doors of an organisation, they often come through as drones. When we treat labour that way, and make it a commodity, we are basically making drones.”

She also added that in rebooting the economy, leadership was critical.

Leaders, she said, make decisions on how to use capital and when to use it and what to use it on.

President of the APETT Vince Ramlochan, in his address said, “The stability of economies should not be dependent on any single economic pillar.

“Today’s globalised environment means that any shift in price-sensitive commodities will have catastrophic effects on local economies.”