Globalisation and the labouragenda in small economies, with special reference to Guyana

• Author: Rahim Bacchus, Jnr.
• Position: Attorney-at-Law and Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados
• Pages: 163-183

GLOBALISATION AND THE

LABOURAGENDA IN SMALL

ECONOMIES, WITH SPECIAL

REFERENCE TO GUYANA

RAHIM BACCHUS, JNR.*

INTRODUCTION

Governments of small countries in the Southern Hemisphere in need of

investment and finance are rushing to negotiate with governments of devel-

oped countries, international finance institutions and

trade

organisations that

insist on a new economic regime. Protectionism

as

a method of development

has given way to trade liberalisation and cross-border capital flows. The

increasing use of new technology and easier communications have accelerated

this process. Foreign direct investment by the international private sector is

supposed

to replace

development assistance to the so-called developing countries.

But not

all

businesses

have

been receiving the level or kind of foreign direct

investment that was anticipated, and not all businesses have benefited in the

same way from this new economic

regime.

And

certainly*

not

all

workers have

had the same experience of

this

new global order. The International Labour

Organisation estimates that

10

million

workers were

added to the ranks of the

unemployed in 1998, due mainly to the Asian economic meltdown1

*Attorney-at-Law and Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill,

Barbados.

The Subject-matter of this article was first presented

as

a Paper to the lst International

Management Conference, Georgetown, Guyana, Sept. 30 - Oct.

01,

19

99,

sponsored by the

Inter-American Development Bank and The Consultative Association of Guyanese Industry

Ltd. Conference theme: 'Changes in the Global Economy and their Implications for

Management and Development of

the

Private Sector in Small Economies such as Guyana'.

1 Kathleen NewUnd, Workers of

the

World,

Now What?' Spring 1999

Foreign Policy

52 at 53.

The first part of this paper will give a brief overview of the way in which

globalisation has affected different parts of the world and, in particular, how

it has affected the labour issue worldwide. The second pan will review the

strategies that have been developed by employers to engage labour in new and

creative ways in an effort to increase efficiency and be more competitive, and

it will also comment on the legal responses to such strategies. The third part

will discuss the ways in which small economies such as Guyana can chart their

own agenda and, in this regard, it will attempt to make recommendations as

to the way forward for capital, labour and the State to develop a tripartite

programme based on the doctrine of mutualism. This should be binding in

conscience as well as in law, and should

serve

the collective interests of all parties

concerned.

AN

OVERALL PERSPECTIVE OF

GLOBALISATION

AND LABOUR

One writer recently noted that '[T]here is an empty seat at the banquet of

economic globalisation. While international capital, trade and business feast

on open markets, heightened efficiency and vanishing barriers, labour is

nowhere to be

found'.2

It was further pointed out that while labour mobility at both the high

and low ends of the job market has increased, 'it pales in comparison with

the almost frictionless movement of capital across international borders. At

a time when over 22 percent of the world's output is traded internationally,

a mere 2 percent of the world's people live outside their countries of origin'

and only some of them have migrated as a direct result of globalisation.

For example, countries such as Guyana suffered massive migration of the

labour force, both skilled and unskilled, and also of

capital,

but this had to

do more with the prevailing social, economic and political degradation of

the country in the 1970s and 1980s, than to globalisation. It should be

noted, also, that many of the migrants entered or remained in the various

host countries, illegally.

However, while there is no globalisation of labour, the structure of the

workforce in the globalised economy

has

been polarised. Many Trans-Nauonal

2

Ibid. at 52.

3

Ibid. at 54.