COLLISION COURSE

WESTERN BUREAU:

Before the first block is laid, the developers of the planned J$1 billion Harmony Cove development in Trelawny are seemingly on a collision course with the island’s trade union movement.

At a recent ceremony to reannounce the project, Christopher Anand, managing partner of the Nexus Luxury Collection, which is integrally involved in the project, said that workers would be empowered to represent themselves, which would mean bypassing traditional trade union structures, a model he said is being used at its Albany property in The Bahamas.

“We created our own unions in The Bahamas, where the departments within themselves represent themselves. They don’t need to pay anybody to ever talk to the ownership. We’re here; we run our property,” said Anand.

However, Kurt Fletcher, island supervisor at the National Workers’ Union (NWU), said any such move would be a clear case of union busting.

“It is union busting. If you, the owners of capital, are going to create a mechanism that says they are going to advocate for the workers, it would be a façade because if you really have the interest of the people at heart, you really don’t need an internal organisation to tell you how to deal with them,” Fletcher told The Gleaner yesterday. “Unions are advocates for the working class who will be objective. Capital will always do what capital does.”

‘Highest wages’

In outlining their operational plan, Anand said that under the Nexus Luxury Collection model, their workers would be earning the highest wages in Jamaica’s hospitality sector, intimating that it would negate the need for trade union representation.

“We will be the best payers in hospitality because that’s how you get the best staff, and also, they (the staff) will have a voice at all times,” said Anand, again referencing their Bahamas situation.

However, in further dismissing the notion of in-house representation over recognised trade unions, Fletcher said the former would always be subservient to the needs of the management.

“When you say you are forming an in-house union, it is really a way to trick workers to say, ‘Hey, you have a voice here’,” said Fletcher, who noted that groups such as staff associations are not legally recognised trade unions under Jamaican law.

“A lot of these staff associations are not able to register as a trade union, and they don’t have the rights of a traditional trade union because there is a Trade Union Act that we live by,” added Fletcher, who noted that the heads of bodies advocating the formation of in-house unions often lacked knowledge of Jamaica’s labour laws.

“I can assure you that most of the ones I know that were born this way are always subservient to management, and most people don’t even know that they are members of it,” said Fletcher. “And, therefore, the effect of it – representing the workers or dealing with workers’ rights – is not there. And it’s not only about pay. I can point out several organisations now that the heads, they don’t know anything about the labour laws.”

albert.ferguson@gleanerjm.com