Collective bargaining and affordability

THE INABILITY to meet the remuneration demands of unions is a common excuse proffered by employers and has been cited as the basis for the breakdown in negotiations between recognised majority units (RMU) and employers. Indeed, the courts would have pronounced on this position on many occasions, reminding that the inability to pay does not negate the responsibility of employers to pay a fair wage.

The Government as an employer has very often used this as the reason for paying public officers relatively low wages in contrast to what obtains in the private sector. This has severely impacted its ability to attract and retain highly skilled, technical professionals within the ranks of the public service.

This wage differential between the public and private sectors also has other far-reaching consequences, including lower levels of worker commitment and productivity. In an effort to address this disparity, TTUTA agreed to the adoption of the scientifically sound and internationally accepted external labour market survey (ELMS) as a means of eliminating or at least narrowing this gap. It was an outcome of efforts by the authorities to attract and retain quality teachers and curtail the haemorrhaging of teachers to foreign lands in search of better compensation packages.

Its adoption could not have come too soon. By the early 90s many schools were plagued by teacher shortages and the Government was forced to accede to TTUTA’s position to take drastic steps to alleviate a problem the country simply could not afford.

Thankfully, the strategy worked, despite the continued insistence by the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) that any remuneration package agreed upon must be contextualised from the perspective of affordability. Hence, the very first time that the ELMS was used for the 1999-2002 salary negotiations, the huge wage differential that the survey unsurprisingly revealed between what teachers were earning and what they were worth in the context of prevailing economic market conditions was so substantial that agreement had to be reached on a phased closure of the gap. Through a prolonged process of hard bargaining and negotiations between TTUTA and the CPO, consensus was arrived at.

This agreement required big concessions from both parties to the negotiations. It was a triumph for the process of collective bargaining. Indeed, it would take two collective bargaining periods for the full closure of the gap, but at the end of the day, teachers were finally feeling they were earning a living wage and were able to maintain a decent lifestyle that is commensurate with their role, function, status and profession. They felt they were not being unilaterally targeted to carry an unfair and disproportionate burden of economic adjustment.

Despite the many protests and demonstrations undertaken by teachers back then, the spirit of the collective bargaining process was never in doubt or threatened to be scuttled by an over-zealous employer to refer the matter to a third party.

There are many lessons that can be learnt from the past rounds of negotiations between TTUTA and the CPO that would make for the maintenance of industrial peace. On the question of affordability, the pertinent contrary question must be: Can the country afford not to pay teachers a wage that is befitting the profession?

If education is the foundation of economic development, would it be wise to continue to adopt a dogmatic stance that has effectively abandoned the collective bargaining process? What would be the long-term social and economic costs to the country to pay teachers sub-standard wages on top of forcing them to function in deplorable working conditions?

The unprecedented rises in the cost of living over the last five years have substantially depreciated the real value of teachers’ income while the unsympathetic employer is preoccupied with balancing the books, oblivious to the social and economic fallout.

The eagerness of the Minister of Finance to invoke sections 21 and 22 of the Civil Service Act Chapter 23:01 is not surprising. The Government is acutely aware that given the current construct of the law, the cards are stacked against the RMU. Previous awards made by the Special Tribunal have not done justice to public officers. Combined with teachers being denied fundamental workers’ rights as enshrined in the Industrial Relations Act and the provisions of the Special Tribunal, it is easy for the Government to have its belligerent way.

Whatever happened to the 2015 pre-election promises to the Joint Trade Union Movement to amend these pieces of draconian anti-worker legislation that continues to facilitate the naked exploitation of workers?