Take care with contract cuts

THE PRIME Minister is open to cutting out contract work and, instead, filling vacant posts in the civil service. That’s great. But the government must also adopt a humane approach to non-renewals, and it needs to attend to long overdue public sector reform.

Many are the benefits of contract work. It allows flexibility. Job descriptions and remuneration levels can be tailored and kept under review. The bottleneck at commissions can be avoided. In lean times, contract work can be scaled down; in times of plenty, and thus high demand, it can be scaled up. But such flexibility benefits mainly the state. Workers are another matter. On August 27, they found a high-profile advocate.

“You have no security of tenure, you cannot get a loan, you cannot get a mortgage, you cannot leverage your job,” said Ms Persad-Bissessar, 73, as she discussed the issue with reporters on August 27. “You could be sent home at any time.”

Conventional thinking suggests workers who face the axe might be inspired to work harder. Yet, the opposite is also true. Job security boosts productivity. It gives people a stake in their own success, opening the door to promotion, reskilling, institutional knowledge and a sense of belonging. It’s all too easy to suggest that a worker who cannot be fired will not care about the job; a worker who is permanently employed is just as likely to be more productive because they have something at stake.

The state’s reliance on floating labour has increased in recent years. Short-term contract spending spiked by a whopping 31 per cent in 2023, according to the Auditor General’s report for that year. A 2018 parliamentary committee also found that almost half of all civil service work is being done by people on contract. Under Ms Persad-Bissessar’s first tenure from 2010 to 2015, contract employees rose from 6,531 to 7,828. But under the PNM, such numbers were significantly surpassed, doubling according to some estimates. It won’t be long before the notion of a permanently employed civil servant becomes a thing of the past, unless the government acts.

But the record of the new Persad-Bissessar administration on contract termination is so far not a happy one. The Cepep missteps must be avoided. Workers who are presently serving out terms should be given adequate notice. Since some, if not all, will be qualified to fill many of the positions that the state will fill, these workers can be given an opportunity to apply. PNM figures like Colm Imbert, who showed little sign in the last decade of having a plan to deal with overreliance on contract work, are likely to ramajay on this matter. To win the argument, ministers must be fair, reasonable and compassionate.