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Following two successful national bipartite meetings in St Lucia and Grenada on July 7 and 9, respectively, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) will this week hold three more workshops in Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, and St Kitts and Nevis.
The meeting in St.Kitts-Nevis is set for Thursday July 16th at the St Kitts Marriott Resort. The keynote address will be delivered by St.Kitts-Nevis Senior Minister and Minister of Nevis Affairs, Labour, Social Security and Ecclesiastical Affairs and Premier of Nevis Hon. Vance Amory.
Representatives from national employers’ and workers’ organisations will discuss labour issues pertinent to each member state, such as developing and fostering national and regional social dialogue mechanisms and meeting labour market demands through technical and vocational training.
The workshops form part of an EU-funded programme to strengthen the capacity of the Caribbean Employers’ Confederation (CEC) and the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL), which will enable them to play a more effective role in determining and developing regional policy.
The EU-funded programme supported by the ILO with CEC and CCL is a three-year programme designed to build the capacity of the regional organisations so that they can participate effectively in regional development and integration processes, and thus fulfil their obligations under the Social Aspects Chapter of the Economic Partnership.
Strengthening the regional organisations will also necessitate capacity-building activities of the national organisations affiliated to CEC and CCL, respectively, as these organisations will be called upon to provide logistical, technical and political support to the initiatives of the regional organisations.
Already the CEC and CCL have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together to identify areas where common legislative and regulatory principles having regional application are essential and to formulate in legislation principles facilitating the establishment and operation of business and the free movement of labour with the Caricom (Caribbean Community) common space.
This legislative agenda also includes upholding and advocating for the principles and rights enshrined in ILO Fundamental Conventions. Other regional level activities include a study tour to Brussels, Belgium, in May and an employers’ forum in Barbados in June.
These bipartite meetings represent the first in a series of national activities to be undertaken in each of the 15 countries which are members of the Caribbean Forum (CARI¬FORUM).
These one-day meetings of the national employers’ and workers’ organisations will form the platform for further work to be executed within the scope of the three-year EU programme.