Orville Taylor | Workers weak

Some things have not changed, despite the century of international labour standards. We are in Workers’ Week, a bittersweet week. For the first time, in my four decades of labour advocacy and scholarship, I was able to visit Frome Labour Park, the heritage site, which commemorates the spark of the 1938 labour uprising, that ultimately led to the formation of our two modern political parties.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security, my incubator, launched the week during Radio Jamaica’s Hotline, and of course, it was a proud moment for me, to look at the journey we have made since then. And doubtless, it was pleasing to see some of the developments from the 1990s come to fruition.

We saw the monuments of Beatrice Pye Pye, one of the unsung heroines of the riots. I was also touched by the strong women who, as mothers of multiple children, were armed with their machetes, coming from the cane fields.

Their union officer was there as well, and it is obvious that the 1938 gap still has not completely closed.

Bitter also, because of the the death of the de facto children’s advocate, Betty Ann Bowen Blaine; a shocker. In Child Month at that.

Long before it was fashionable, she was almost a voice in the wilderness, one of the few persons going beyond simply talk. In 1992 she founded Youth Opportunities Unlimited and a decade later she inaugurated Hear the Children Cry, and has been unstinting in advocating the need for greater protection.

Note, this was long before the Child Care and Protection Act and she was instrumental in that statute as well as, and the Ananda alert system.

Inasmuch as this is not a full and complete tribute to Blaine, it has to be recognised that Workers Week and those things related to children are intrinsically connected.

CHILD LABOUR

True, our labour leaders, government and others, have long paid attention to Conventions 138 and 182 of the International Labour Organization, which address child labour. However, In a society like Jamaica, child labour is not just connected to economic activities, which children are forced or led to partake in, but also those issues, which have to do with their parents, and in particular their mothers.

In multiple articles and conversations over the years, I have raised the assertion that there are lots of social pathologies relating to young men and to a lesser extent women, which began simply with women.

The narrative about missing fathers from most households has long been debunked by solid data provided by research from no lesser than my colleague Maureen Samms Vaughn, whose JA Kids Study is the most definitive over the last two decades, regarding children and the presence of their parents in their lives.

In another column, I will speak of her work, which matches all of the social scientists’ concerns expressed regarding COVID-19. Neither she nor any of my other colleagues in the department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at the University of the West Indies, Mona, is even slightly surprised, because of the spike in violence not just against children but by children themselves.

The expertise and desire to help lay in the department, but no one asked.

Parents are around, however, contrary to the diatribe about missing fathers, the most telling of all the variables is parenting. Abused children are often the product of abusive relationships. For that reason, therefore, policies have to also focus on the kind of treatment women received not just from their spouses, but from others, including the workplace, during their pregnancies and first years after childbirth. The impact of ‘indecent’ work practices also continue for the work life of the worker and beyond.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

In the context of Workers’ Week, therefore, we have to take responsibility when we allow abusive workplace policies or an abusive work environment to filter down into maternal hostility towards her children, and in particular the young males.

While it might be true, admittedly, that I am seeking work for my social work graduates, it is because there is serious need for these highly trained individuals, to create interventions and monitor them, especially coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The fact is, we have too long treated the welfare of children as precisely that; welfare, and it is not.

We need a steady and deliberate approach to child behavioural issues, as we treat their physical ones. Early social ‘vaccines’ based on the social research, monitoring by trained professionals in the social sciences, an elevation of the Family Court to be on par with the High Courts. And importantly, tracing the outcome of the judicial decisions, to see if the science supports the vagaries of judges.

Finally, for Workers’ Week, let me apologise to the Jamaica Employers federation (JEF) for failing to keep my word in presenting at Convention 2024. The blame is squarely mine and mine only. Moreover, the intention was to show more lucidly how unfair labour practices feed low productivity and fuelled the level of violence in society.

Interestingly, in a country with two labour parties in Parliament, since 1944, all perceived anti-labour governments always suffer at the polls. Treating workers badly is just sheer stupidity and self-defeating.

Some of these findings I have mentioned to members of the constabulary at two divisional conferences over the past year.

My apologies also to the delegates at the annual conference of the Jamaica Police Federation, to whom I promised I would be in attendance.

Nonetheless, my research, practice and experience hold the same for the Constabulary as for any other set of workers.

Decent work is predicated also on police officers carrying out their duties according to their oaths and avoiding malice, ill will and unfair practices.

Trust me, a divided force is worse than a divided society; because of its capacity to use legitimate violence or to underperform in facing it.

By the way, speaking of unsung heroes, let us remember Special Constable Joseph Maynard…

Research him, please.

Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com