Cayman Islands Minister at Caribbean Labour meeting

The Labour Minister from the Caribbean at the Fifth
Meeting of Caribbean Labour Ministers

Thursday, April 29, 2004

Minister for Labour, the Hon Roy Bodden, represented the Cayman Islands at the Fifth Meeting of Caribbean Labour Ministers held recently in Nassau, Bahamas.

Mr Bodden joined with Ministers from the region to discuss strategies to deal with labour issues facing Caribbean countries.

Accompanying Mr Bodden was his Permanent Secretary, Joy Basdeo and Director of Employment Relations, Walling Whittaker.

The meeting brought together ministers with responsibility for labour and labour officials from 13 ILO member states and eight overseas territories from the English and Dutch-speaking Caribbean.

During the meeting, participants focused on ways of integrating the International Labour Organisation’s requirement of a decent work environment for all into their national and regional policy agendas.

The meeting also dealt with the need to accelerate job creation, expand social protection and improve the climate of industrial relations in the Caribbean.

The ministers’ gathering followed a recent report by the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation calling for countries to make, “decent work for all a global goal to be pursued through complementary national and international policies.”

The ILO’s concept of decent work is built on four strategic pillars, the promotion of fundamental principles and rights at work; employment; enterprise creation, and human resource development, social protection and social dialogue.

The Decent Work Agenda is an attempt to create an integrated development strategy that links worker rights and social dialogue with employment policies and social protection.

It combines the traditional ILO agenda of human rights at work and social protection with a developmental agenda for growth, employment and jobs.

Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Hon Perry G Christie delivered the feature address at the formal opening of the meeting. Other speakers included the Hon Vincent Peet, Minister of Labour and Immigration in the Bahamas government, Grace Strachan, Director ILO Caribbean Office, George de Peana, General Secretary Caribbean Congress of Labour, Marcel Meyer, President Caribbean Employers’ Confederation, Dr Steven McAndrew of the Caricom Secretariat Labour Desk, and Samuel Goolsaran, ILO Senior Specialist, Industrial Relations and Labour Administration.

A special presentation entitled Social Dialogue and Economic Development: The Role of Labour Ministries in promoting and managing change, was delivered by Sally Paxton, Executive Director, Social Dialogue Sector, ILO, Geneva.

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