Week after week since October workers in the sugar industry have been waiting for their redundancy pay, which amounts to a substantial $3 billion. They still don't know if they will get their money for Christmas. Reports are that their debts to surrounding shops are unpaid, and this is hurting commerce in the sugar areas. This is symptomatic of the crisis in the lives of many Jamaicans going into Christmas.

Our trade unions must be commended for trying to talk companies into avoiding the dreaded lay-off as the first strategy to protect productivity and profits. But unemployment has already risen to 12 per cent, and even those jobs that are saved might be subject to a shift system with fewer hours and less pay for each worker.

Economy in crisis

The finance minister still believes that the economy is not in crisis. The People's National Party (PNP) leader says he must be in wonderland. The budget in April did not anticipate the crisis, even though many were talking about the likelihood of a US depression from before Christmas last year. I, for one, wrote about it. In fact, economists are now saying the current recession began last December. Did we begin to plan early enough to save the jobs that have already been lost? It is now commonplace for the Government to say that the crisis is global, which it is, and that there is little we can do, which is not true.

For instance, we have been talking about a shift system for some time now. We have talked about employer-employee partnerships. We have talked about self-reliance and growing more of our own food. We have talked about 'brand Jamaica' and eating Jamaican. We have talked about diversifying tourism into heritage, culture and community tourism and not being so dependent on the all-inclusive hotels. Now we're talking about them again, only this time we are already in a new crisis.

Social partnerships

We are hearing again about social partnerships. Suddenly people who were not interested a few years ago, and who even criticised the public sector MOU, are now big fans of the idea, so desperate are the times and so political are the people. Social partnerships require that profits, wages, prices, and welfare be regulated to achieve the best possible outcome for all partners under conditions where market and state cannot by themselves achieve this.

The question is, who will give up what? For example, there is a social partnership at Alpart but the company says it cannot pay wage increases promised months ago because of falling alumina prices, and workers say they cannot accept further postponement of payment because of the cost of living. Unions must be careful not to allow companies to pass on the burden of cost adjustments to workers under the guise of social partnership.

Also, much is dependent on the credibility of Government's policies and statements. For example, the finance minister unrealistically anticipated an inflation rate of less than 10 per cent after last year's rate of 20 per cent and in the midst of continuing rises in food and energy prices. Now, the year's inflation target has been reset at 15 per cent to 17 per cent, a very different figure. Prices and inflation are key to wage negotiations and profit expectations. No one wants to settle below actual inflation levels, because he will come out giving up too much and getting little or nothing in return.

Government has to be realistic to be credible and has to be transparent as well. Shaw seems to be set on budget cuts to get international loans and the possibility of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) adjustment programme looms. We need to know what the Government plans to cut in terms of programmes and people and what wage levels might be demanded by multilateral agencies. Unions must be careful to ensure that social partnership is not a ploy to put profits before people so that multilaterals can be sure they get repaid for their loans.

Government must be credible for social partners to know how to plan. Samuda had told us that prices would be coming down for Christmas. I suspect that many people didn't believe this and he has subsequently backtracked. Inflation has moderated but there is no rollback of prices and the gradual devaluation going on now makes any rollback more unlikely. Unions must be careful that social partnerships are not being encouraged to get them to buy into wages that are premised on empty promises of lower prices to come.

Government commutment

The Government must demonstrate a commitment to social partnership. As the Opposition it did nothing to encourage the public sector MOU and other social partnerships. Up to mid-November this year, the Monitoring Committee of the Public Sector MOU had not met since the most recent agreement was signed in March. The tradition had been for the Monitoring Committee to meet each month.

Opposition Spokesperson on the Public Pervice, Natalie Neita-Headley, has said that the role of the Monitoring Committee was very important in recommending adjustments to the cost of living at its monthly meetings. Given the cost of living crisis and the possibility of redundancies and restructuring in the public sector, giving rise to fears of job losses, the Monitoring Committee must be the mechanism through which the government's own social partnership demonstrates its commitment and seriousness about saving people's jobs. Trade unions must make sure the social partnership is not used to legitimise structural adjustment in the public sector that asks workers and not politicians to sacrifice their livelihoods. The oversized Cabinet should be the first to be chopped.

Failure of the administration

The failure of the administration to acknowledge that we have a crisis on our hands has led to a failure to respond earlier and properly. First, the budget failed to set realistic targets for inflation, employment, and GDP growth, and all of the figures given to us in April have now had to be revised. The need for more social partnerships should have been spelled out in the government's April budget as the framework for managing the economic challenges. The Government campaigned on unrealistic and unrealisable promises and in its first budget gave us more unrealistic targets.

Second, in early October, the Opposition Spokesman on Finance, Omar Davies, asked the Government to convene a parliamentary debate on the state of the economy, since many targets were being missed or were likely to be missed. We needed to debate the country's readiness to address the crisis. On that occasion, too, the Government should have used the opportunity to launch a debate on social partnerships. It remained stubbornly in wonderland. Now, with Christmas around the corner, there is no help for the thousands who have already lost heir jobs, like sugar and banana workers, and those about to, like bauxite workers. It is only now that we are hearing about the need for social partnerships.

We need goodwill partnerships to save jobs for Christmas. Longer-term MOUs for progressive social partnerships can be worked out in 2009. But unions should remember that the International Labour Organisation expects that price rises will erode the value of wages globally in 2009.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona campus. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm or columns@gleanerjm.com.