The role of the State and the social partners

Madhuri Supersad
Ministry of Labour, Manpower Development & Industria Relations
Trinidad & Tobago

This Paper seeks to show that Vocational Training constitutes a vital tool for the promotion and realization of Decent Work. It also discusses the roles that the State and the social partners can play in the process. Finally, it provides a profile of vocational training in Trinidad and Tobago within the context of decent work.

Concept of Decent Work

It must be quite fascinating to the social partners who operate within the orbit of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and even to the professionals within the ILO itself, to witness the evolution of the concept of Decent Work. The concept was formally introduced to the Constituents of the ILO and to the world by the incumbent Director-General, Mr. Juan Somavia at the 87^th Session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) in 1999. Since then, ascertaining the dimensions of decent work has been a work-in-progress. The latest milestone, of course, was the Report of the D-G to the 89^th Session of the ILC in June 2001 which focused on the global challenge of ‘Reducing the Decent Work Deficit’.

Defining Features

As originally defined in 1998, the concept referred to productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and dignity. It means that workers should be able to perform productive work in an environment: in which rights are respected, which generates an adequate income, that is safe and healthy, with adequate social protection and, above all, where human dignity is respected and preserved. This concept was further developed by Mr. Somavia in 2001. In page seven of his Report on Decent Work to the 89^th ILC, the Director-General sought to express the goal of decent work as viewed through the eyes of people:

"It is about your job and future prospects; about your working conditions; about balancing work and family life, putting your kids through school or getting them out of child labour. It is about gender equality, equal recognition, and enabling women to make choices and take control of their lives. It is about your personal abilities to compete in the market place, keep up with new technological skills, and remain healthy. It is about developing your entrepreneurial skills, about receiving a fair share of the wealth that you have helped to create and not being discriminated against; it is about having a voice in your workplace and your community. In the most extreme situations it is about moving from subsistence to existence. For many, it is the primary route out of poverty. For many more, it is about realizing personal aspirations in their daily existence and about solidarity with others. And everywhere, and for everybody, decent work is about securing human dignity."

Based on this description, Decent Work does not represent a new or different mission for the Organisation. The work of the ILO, since its inception, has always been about the alleviation of poverty and the decent treatment of workers. This is evidenced by the well-known visionary statements of the founders of the Organisation that ‘poverty anywhere constitutes a threat to prosperity everywhere’ and that ‘labour is not a commodity’. It is also evidenced by the body of international labour standards that has been fashioned since the establishment of the ILO. One of the major advantages of the concept of Decent Work is that it provides the ILO with a tool to contemporize its mandate and modernize its strategies for achieving its objectives within the globalised context.

Versatile Tool

The appeal of the concept lies in the fact that it is, at the same time, simple and profound. The simplicity of the phrase ‘decent work’, renders an immediate and implicit understanding of its meaning. Its depth is evidenced by the content of the studies and reports that the concept has so far stimulated. These writings have resulted in the incremental crystallization of the concept to the extent that it now encompasses the entire mandate of the ILO. The fulfillment of this mandate is made more manageable by the development by the Office, of four strategic objectives that together incorporate all the components of the decent work agenda:

1. Promotion of the ILO Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work;
2. Promotion of employment;
3. Promotion of social security; and
4. Promotion of social dialogue.

The budget and programmes of the ILO for the current and next biennia have been organized around these four strategic objectives. This approach facilitates a more logical and streamlined presentation of the programme and activities of the ILO, easier comprehension by the constituents of the complexities and priorities associated with the budget and would allow for better evaluation of the goals and outcomes.

The process of refinement of the Decent Work concept, however, has also produced a new and versatile mechanism for inserting the labour agenda into development goals both at the national and international levels. The versatility of the mechanism is reflected by the fact that decent work can be presented, alternately, as:

1. A goal for people and for countries;
2. A policy framework;
3. A method of organizing programmes and activities; and a
4. A platform for external dialogue and partnerships.

Its versatility is also underscored by the fact that the concept can be universally relevant and can embrace countries at varying levels of development. However, the D-G warns that the decent work agenda is more a signpost than a blueprint.

Centrality of Work

Fundamental to the achievement of decent work is the opportunity to work. The D-G’s 2001 Report notes in pages 5-6 that the deep-rooted significance of work to all people everywhere is an inescapable conclusion. Work is a defining feature of human existence. It is a means of sustaining life and of meeting basic needs. But it is also the activity through which individuals affirm their own identity, both to themselves and to those around them. It is crucial to individual choice, to the welfare of families and to the stability of societies. One’s ability to work would depend on one’s employability, that is, whether one possesses the skills and attributes being demanded in the labour market.

The Labour Market Context

The World Employment Report (WER) 1998-99 notes that demand for skilled labour has risen significantly as a result of globalisation and changes in technology and the organization of work. The rapid diffusion of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has played a significant role in the globalisation of the market place which, in turn, has intensified global competition. Countries, and in particular, developing countries, in their efforts to be counted as players in this globalised world have begun to focus on the contribution of their human resources to improving their global competitiveness. Enterprises, in their endeavours to maintain competitiveness and to maximize the use of ICT in improving productivity have resorted to adopting new forms of work organization. In both scenarios, as the WER also notes, a global consensus is emerging that one of the keys to a productive and competitive economy in the next millennium is a well-trained and adaptable workforce.

National competitiveness relates to the ability of a country to produce goods and services that are of comparable international standards while facilitating continuous improvement in the standard of living of its citizens. It is widely accepted that an educated and trained workforce is a key input to improved national productivity. It is also an important factor in attracting foreign direct investment which, through technology transfers, in turn, further improves a country’s stock of human resources and standard of living. The imperative to compete now on the basis of factors in addition to price, namely, quality, standards, reliable and frequent and flexible deliveries, innovation and creativity, have caused firms to restructure their production processes and adopt new forms of work organization. These changes have resulted in a shift in the type of worker profile that companies now demand. The pace of change in technologies calls for workers who are able to learn and adapt to new ones quickly, continuously and competently. Employment in the new scenario, like productivity, would rely significantly on the quality of employment and training received by the workforce.

Vocational Training as a Response

The Director-General explains in his 2001 Report that decent work is also about one’s personal abilities to compete in the market place, keep up with new technological skills (and develop) entrepreneurial skills: in sum, one’s continuous employability. This statement implies that continuous training is a prerequisite for decent work. It further suggests that the key attributes demanded of the workforce by the global marketplace are skills, flexibility, adaptability and creativity. The ILO Cinterfor Paper 2001 on Decent Work and Vocational Training underscores the fact that vocational training is a crucial employability factor and, while not itself a generator of jobs, facilitates job retention or job access by the skills, knowledge and attitudes imparted.

Vocational Training is both an instrument for the promotion of worker employability through the enhancement of individual human capital and for productivity improvement and competitiveness at the level of the firm or nation through the accumulation of human capital and the attendant externalities. The ILO Resolution of 2000 concerning human resources training and development acknowledges that ‘Education and training are a means to empower people, improve the quality and organization of work, enhance citizens’ productivity, raise workers’ incomes, improve enterprise competitiveness, promote job security and social equity and inclusion. Education and training are therefore a central pillar of decent work.’ Taking off from this, one can also conclude that Vocational Training is also a central pillar of decent work. It is at the same time a prerequisite and a component of decent work (Cinterfor: 2001) and together they constitute a virtuous circle.

Vocational Training is a passport for accessing and establishing decent work as defined by the D-G. For instance, the right to work itself is fundamentally dependent on one’s level and quality of training. Work provides the avenue for self-fulfillment and for contribution to the well being of oneself, family and society at large. A trained worker in the workplace is likely to be an empowered person. A trained worker is more likely to ensure that proper terms and conditions are adhered to and more likely to engage in collective bargaining and social dialogue.

Responsibility for Skills Development

Human Capital Theories and Methodologies all underscore the importance of Government investment in education and training in order for a country to achieve growth and competitiveness. While an entrepreneur/owner may be driven mainly by profit considerations, the State’s interventions in vocational or skills training are guided by more macro-level concerns such as equity, poverty alleviation, productivity and international competitiveness. Interventions by the State are guided by four main considerations:

1. External Benefits. Firms may not possess the foresight or the willingness to "ensure that a sufficient number of people are being trained in transferable skills vital to the economy"(World Bank: 1993) and to long term national needs. Moreover, the deregulation of the labour market via subcontracting, self-employment and temporary work undermines training and results in deskilling. It is the State that would be concerned about the longer-term implications of such activities on the labour market. For instance, deskilling would negatively affect the further flexibility of a country’s workforce, its ability to introduce new technology and, ultimately, its international competitiveness. In this regard, state-organised training can contribute to the availability of workers with skills vital to the success of new or growing industries and the attainment of the country’s macroeconomic goals.
2. Market Imperfections. Government’s remedial action is required in situations where market imperfections negatively affect the opportunities of workers to access skills training. It is the duty of the State, for instance, to consider the ability of its citizens to pay for vocational training.
3. Weak Enterprise Training Capacity. A country’s aggregate skill level and healthy, productive industries are important variables in locating its competitiveness in the global market. The State’s intervention in skill development is justified in situations where enterprises are unable or unwilling to provide skills adequate to the needs of the specific sector. Small firms in particular may be unable to meet the needs of their sectors due to their lack of managerial competencies, foresight, relevant personnel management capacity and/or the high training costs.
4. Equity Issues. At the policy level, the State’s concern should be to ensure that all workers have equal access to training opportunities and are not hampered from equity of treatment by the existence of various forms of labour market segmentation. It is the State’s responsibility to ensure that women, youth, older workers or persons with disabilities are not discriminated against in their access to skills training. The nexus between skills training and employability provides the State with a powerful tool for the empowerment of its citizens, the spread of decent work and the enhancement of individual and collective quality of life.

Parameters for State Action

It has been established that it is the responsibility of the State and in its interest to provide vocational training to its citizens. A comprehensive approach to its provision of vocational training should include the following:

i. A national policy on vocational training that is integrated into and linked with the broader national goals and objectives and that establishes, inter alia, its goals, target groups, structures and systems and time-bound strategies;

ii.  A comprehensive vocational training system that clearly depicts a national qualifications framework indicating:

• occupational areas,
• training providers,
• accreditation and quality assurance issues,
• qualification and certification mechanisms, and
• matters related to articulation and transferability

and that has built-in flexibility and dynamism to cater to the changing training needs of the country and industry within the context of the global marketplace;

iii.  A vocational training plan that incorporates skills development strategies for disadvantaged groups for whom the attainment of decent work is a considerable challenge:

• Women
• Youth
• Persons with disabilities
• Older workers
• Informal Sector

iv.  A comprehensive package of support systems and services integral to meaningful vocational training outcomes, including:

• An Employment policy
• A labour market information system (LMIS)
• A national employment service
• A labour standards and legislative framework
• A tripartite framework
• Business development services

Decent Work for Disadvantaged Groups

There are groups of workers that can be found in all countries of the world – both developed and developing – whose positions in the labour market influence their level and quality of human capital and constitute significant barriers to accessing vocational training and decent work. While there may be global similarities in the problems experienced by each group, namely, poverty, unemployment and social exclusion, no blueprint exists for alleviating these problems. Skills development targeted at these groups can be the single-most effective strategy to provide empowerment and to propel them into employment in the more productive sectors of the economy. Such targeted approaches may need to consider the value of competence as opposed to knowledge and the value of non-formal learnings. These groups may be profiled as follows:

Women: generally women in the labour force experience a lower participation rate and a higher unemployment rate than men. They tend to be concentrated in lower income occupations and traditional ‘female’ areas of employment and possess traditional and lower skills. They comprise a significant percentage of workers in the informal sector.

Youth: high unemployment among young persons is a universal problem. Lack of work experience due mainly to age militates against their employability and results in a vicious circle. Skills acquisition is necessary to facilitate the transition from work to school.

Informal Sector: this sector may be comprised of self-employed, low-waged and low-skilled workers with women being subjected to further disadvantage due to segmentation. The challenge is two-fold, to promote decent work within the sector through skills development and adherence to labour standards and to facilitate the transition to the formal sector of appropriately skilled candidates.

Persons with Disabilities: generally, skills development strategies pay scant attention to the needs of this group. To properly integrate these persons into the labour market under conditions of decent work, attention has to be paid to training facilities and to the adoption and modification of technologies to maximize the potential contribution that these persons can make to their own well being and to national development.

Older Workers: quite often, these workers fall through the technological cracks not being able to adapt and keep pace with the rapid technological changes taking place in the workplace. The reorganization of work processes as a result of the demands of globalisation results in their displacement and inability to be decently re-employed. Their plight is complicated by the fact that, as mature workers, they tend to have heavy family and financial commitments. Typical skills development strategies tend to neglect this group.

Partnerships for Decent Work

Vocational training impacts directly on the productivity of an enterprise. Skills training programmes therefore cannot be designed without taking into account the real needs, standards and concerns of the industrial sectors. But such training must also take into account the decent work requirements of the training recipient in areas such as the quality, level and certification, attendant effect of training on wages and promotion and task allocation. These concerns typically fall within the negotiating ambit of trade unions. As such, planning for vocational training must be done in partnership with both the employers and the trade unions.

Employers, in particular, have a direct role to play in the provision of vocational training since they are the main beneficiaries. They can participate by direct financing, provision of facilities and provision of trainers. In the case of firm-specific skills requirements, it is the responsibility of the employer to train or finance the training of its staff. The employer group is also able to inject a greater degree of dynamism and flexibility into skills training since enterprises are usually less bureaucratically organized than the State sector and so would be able to quickly respond to changes in training content as identified by the market. Employers can contribute more significantly to decent work by establishing apprenticeship programmes especially to alleviate youth unemployment, by promoting entrepreneurship among young persons, by supporting research for job creation especially regarding the vulnerable groups, by sharing expertise with and advising Governments and by promoting Governments’ skills-related programmes to other employers.

Decent Work and Vocational Training in Trinidad and Tobago

Decent Work in Operation

As a concept, the term ‘decent work’ is not yet a part of popular vocabulary at the policy level of Government and Employers’ Groups and to a lesser extent, Workers’ organisations. However, key characteristics of the concept, particularly with respect to vocational training and skills development are reflected in the ‘Social and Economic Compact’ that was entered into by the social partners in November 2000. In this document the partners, inter alia, agree on the following primary objectives to:

• Actively promote human development through higher levels of investment in education, vocational training and housing;
• Develop a long term strategy to substantially increase the level and quality of employment; and
• Develop and implement strategies to generate higher employment levels, a more equitable distribution of income and promote social stability;

And agree to:

• Co-operate in the development of cost-effective and accessible ways of acquiring and maintaining the best relevant skills and expertise for guaranteeing productivity, competitiveness, and efficiency at the workplace; and
• Provide training facilities to develop the marketable skills of all nationals in particular those of young persons, women and disabled persons and direct efforts specifically towards making employment opportunities available to these citizens.

Additionally, the Government’s National Objectives include the achievement of a better quality of life for citizens; greater equity; peace; security and harmony in the society; an ‘intelligent nation’; and more and better jobs. Within the Government, the Ministry of Labour has sought to incorporate the concept and term in its strategic planning exercise and has sought to locate its medium term policy activities within the decent work framework. A number of collective agreements also contain clauses pertaining to the training of workers.

Secondary School System

The formal school system in Trinidad and Tobago consists of primary school education up to the age of eleven after which most, if not all, students have the opportunity to attend secondary school education for another five or seven years. The traditional grammar-type secondary schools focus essentially on academic courses. Vocational training is offered in the newer ‘comprehensive’ schools which offer a combination of academic and technical courses. At the senior comprehensive level, students may choose from three streams: academic, pre-technical and technical/vocational.

Post Secondary Vocational Training

There exists a plethora of public sector vocational training providers that offer varying levels of skills training and a multiplicity of qualifications and certification (attached Table refers). In addition, the private sector offers a variety of technical and vocational courses. In the absence of a rationalized system of vocational qualifications, there has been duplication and overlap among the programmes and confusion in assessing the value of the qualifications obtained.

In 1999, with the aim of rationalizing the system, the Government established the National Training Agency (NTA) to serve as the umbrella organization responsible for co-ordinating and regulating technical and vocational education and training in Trinidad and Tobago. The strategic aims of the NTA (1999-2002) are:

1. To develop the rationale for a national training plan, based on an analysis of sectors of the economy which offer the best opportunity for sustained economic growth.
2. To develop the occupational standards which are required for each of the key sectors and a coherent framework of vocational qualifications based on these standards.
3. To build a rigorous system of assessment, based on the competence-based approach to technical and vocational education and training.
4. To provide high quality guidance and support to trainers and teachers, training providers and Awarding Bodies.
5. To enhance participation in lifelong learning and opportunities for all, using a variety of modes of delivery (including long distance learning).
6. To work efficiently, effectively and in partnership with others.

Among the achievements of the NTA so far, are the preparation of a draft National Training Policy, the establishment of six Industry Training Organisations (ITO), the development of twenty-two Occupational Standards and fifty National Vocational Qualifications and the Accreditation of five Public Sector Providers.

Regional Coherence

In 1990 the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Ministers of Education adopted a Regional Strategy for TVET which recommended the establishment of national training agencies to ensure effective and well-managed national training systems. Subsequent to this, Jamaica (1990) and Barbados (1993) established such agencies nationally. However, efforts to harmonise the systems at the regional level have not been vigorously pursued despite the imminence of the Single Market and Economy. In an effort at initiating regional coherence, the NTA of Trinidad and Tobago hosted a regional conference aimed at forming regional linkages in TVET. The Caribbean Association of National Training Agencies (CANTA) was an outcome of the regional meeting. Since then, a number of Caribbean countries have been communicating on the matter of developing Caribbean Vocational Qualifications (CVQ).

Support Systems

Achieving decent work through vocational training is dependent on factors additional to the skills training system. In this respect, the Labour Ministry has established a labour market information system that includes an education and training database to be used to guide training policy and provide valuable information to jobseekers. The Ministry also houses a job placement and counseling unit. There is also a Small Business Development Company to assist persons in micro business start-up. Related assistance may also be available from other training providers. There is also a supportive legislative framework that includes a national minimum wage, a maternity protection law and equal opportunity legislation.

Possible Mechanisms for expanding decent work may include:

1. Increase awareness of the concept of decent work.
2. Increase research and knowledge of the concept.
3. Ratify fundamental ILO Conventions.
4. Institutionalise social dialogue on vocational training.
5. Pursue an integrated approach among State departments and between State and Industry.
6. Pursue a regional approach.
7. Ensure that a comprehensive support environment is developed.
8. Pay special attention to the decent work requirements of disadvantaged groups.

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