Africa-Press – Mauritius. An established golden rule in democracies, especially of the Westminster type that we have decided to model our own country on, is that the acquired rights of workers must not be tampered with.
The history of the struggle to acquire these acquired rights is strewn with stories, episodes and incidents of confrontations that were often violent, even in the leading democracies such as the UK, the US, France.
It pitched workers against the combined might of capitalism and its quite frequent bedfellow, the government that is supposed in the first place to be the arbiter that would ensure justice to the workers.
This arrangement between government and capital in its modern and more potent form – the corporate – is now no secret in many a country, even the most advanced ones, and has even been labelled as incestuous.
One fundamental aspect of the acquired rights is the wage of workers, and has forever been a source of constant tension between employer and employee.
The inequality gap between these two categories has gone on increasing, leading Thomas Piketty to actually demarcate the superrich 1% and the simply rich 10% from the rest of the heap, at the bottom of which lay workers.
Their bargaining position has in parallel weakened over the years, with the result that the rise in their wages has not been commensurate with the gains made by their employers.
In fact, in many economies, the wages have remained stagnant, and this theme forms the subject of the page ‘Free Exchange’ in the issue of The Economist of June 2nd, 2018.
Titled ‘Power is money’ its header reads: ‘Wage gains may prove elusive until workers enjoy a stronger bargaining position. ’ The article notes that ‘addressing stagnant wages requires an understanding of the relationship between pay, productivity and power.
’ Why stagnant wages? Because they have remained more or less so even in most rich countries where ‘real pay has grown by at most 1% per year, on average, since 2000.
’ But for ‘low-wage workers the stagnation has been more severe and prolonged’ (italics added).
We are not aware of any similar analysis having been done for low-wage workers locally, but if this were done, we wouldn’t be surprised if the same picture were to emerge – that is, that after adjustment for inflation, the pay for workers at the bottom of the scale would be seen to have either remained stagnant or, for all we know, may even have regressed.
That is why the Joint Technical Committee Report on the sugar industry that was submitted last week has caused so much of concern to workers and those who defend them and have stood for their acquired rights.
We have not heard any response from government, but in this paper ex-Minister of Agriculture Arvin Boolell has cried foul because for having been involved in negotiations with the sugar sector before he has a thorough knowledge of it, and made bold to state unequivocally, ‘with the stroke of a pen the JTC recommends the elimination of acquired rights of workers’!
He was ‘appalled’ that representatives of planters and workers ‘were not convened to depone or submit memoranda in writing. They were totally ignored and the composition of the JTC was thoroughly geared towards corporate interests’.
He underlines that ‘the estimated benefits to producers with the implementation of a package of measures are largely to the detriment of small planters.
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How could workers have been so short-shrifted by the JTC? It is incomprehensible that such eminent people would dare to eliminate the acquired rights of cane and field workers! And as historian Sada Reddi pointed out in his interview to this paper last week, such a backward step is really dangerous and ominous, because of a possible ripple effect across the whole of the private sector as well as the public sector.
In another article again in this paper last week, former MP Pradeep Jeeha has made a comprehensive analysis of several broad technical and financial aspects of the sugar industry, citing solid sources to support his argument that tallies with that of Arvin Boolell, namely that the workers have been badly done with in the JTC Report. Like the workers’ unions and others supporting them, he has called for a total rejection of the recommendations of the JTC.
He has also proposed other recommendations, and they are worth reiterating for the attention of the government so that, even if the budget does not take into account their plight, it would be in government’s interest to take note and give due consideration to them – for the sake of cane and field workers who have been for so long the backbone of the sugar economy.
And as the saying goes, literally broken their backs to keep it going through thick and thin. What is the reason for wanting to perpetrate such an injustice on them? – is the question people are asking and which must be answered. Here are the recommendations in Pradeep Jeeha’s paper:
