The Turks and Caicos Islands' System of Labour Administration

The International Labour Organization (ILO) supervises International Labour Standards (Conventions and Recommendations) via a system of reporting on the relevant Conventions. Member states are required, at regular intervals, to report to the ILO on the conditions obtaining in the state regarding the subject of the various Conventions ratified by the state. The organization uses Recommendations to provide guidance to member states, however, Recommendations are not ratified by the member states and, thus, do not have the force of Conventions. Conventions are international treaties.

The Turks and Caicos Islands is one of the non-metropolitan territories of the United Kingdom. Our Islands cannot become a member of the ILO directly but may have the Conventions that the United Kingdom have ratified applied to us. This is what happened while we were a dependency of Jamaica. Until 1962, some of the Fundamental Conventions were applied to Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos. When Jamaica ceased to be responsible for the administration of the two groups of islands somebody dropped the ball and no further reports were made concerning the islands.

Around the turn of the century when Cayman and Turks and Caicos started attending workshops, seminars, etc. put on by the ILO Caribbean Office they tolerated us but could not find any official status for us in the organization. What resulted was that, instead of sending 42 years worth of overdue reports, the United Kingdom was able to negotiate new non-metropolitan status for Cayman and Turks as of November 2004.

ILO Convention 150 and Recommendation 158 concerning the role, functions and organization of labour administration lay down an international framework within which the preparation, implementation, coordination, supervision and evaluation of national labour policy are carried out. In the Convention and Recommendation:
(a) the term labour administration means public administration activities in the field of national labour policy;
(b) the term system of labour administration covers all public administration bodies responsible for and/or engaged in labour administration - whether they are ministerial departments or public agencies, including parastatal and regional or local agencies or any other form of decentralized administration and any institutional framework for the co-ordination of the activities of such bodies and for consultation with and participation by employers and workers and their organizations.

The concept of Labour Administration then could be defined: a coherent national labour policy; a coordinated system; organization integrating the active participation of management and labour and of their respective organizations; and appropriate human, financial and material resources for an effective and efficient service.

For simplification we like to divide the role of the labour administration into three branches. We link employment policy, vocational guidance and collection and dissemination of information with the free, public employment service, we call this branch Employment Services. Everything that has to do with relations between employers and workers or defining that relationship - including bargaining and settlement of disputes, we call Social Dialogue. Safety and Health at Work, legislation or conditions of employment, Labour Inspection and Social Security we've named Social Protection.

The Director General of the ILO, in his 1999 report proposed a primary goal for the organization - "Decent Work" and four strategic objectives namely - rights at work; employment conditions; social dialogue and social protection. Improving or increasing any of these four draws the ILO and the national Labour Administration closer to its goal of Decent Work.

So you see the concept of Labour Administration contains the principal elements of what is understood to be good public administration: Participation - social dialogue; Credibility - fair policies, laws that are known and applied uniformly; Transparency - decision-making, information and services available for all; Responsibility - an open organization that is accountable for its mandates and activities.

The path is very clearly defined for late-coming markets like ours: begin with rights at work, use social dialogue to improve employment conditions and social protection.