Mona School of Business responds to pension debate

THE EDITOR, Madam:

We reference a recent article ‘A penchant for touching pensions: U but not We’, by Orville Taylor, published on November 12. The impression might have been given that the Mona School of Business and Management (MSBM) has officially endorsed a position on these issues, founded on the research of some of its academics.

As a rule, MSBM operates on the principles of academic freedom, which means that individual academics are free to do research on topics of their choice, and come to their own data-driven conclusions. However, academics are expected, by good practice, to be fact-based.

As such, we must state that the MSBM has not endorsed any piece of scholarship or any body of work related to this issue. Further, none of our individual researchers have made any comments or expressed any opinions in this current debate, nor has any of them explicitly or implicitly contributed to any articles, speeches or publications. It is therefore unfortunate that the clear impression would have been given that there was any such endorsement, either by the MSBM or the individuals named, or that they were involved in any way with the writing and or publication of the article.

On the issue of pensions, it is a fact that post-employment benefits constitute a significant cost to employers. There is considerable research evidence dating back almost a century, supporting the idea that employees must enjoy what the International Labour Organisation has recently rebranded as ‘decent’ work, if their employers expect high productivity in the workplace. There is tension between the idea of social protection of decent work, which are seen as a necessary investments and the attendant cost to employers. It is therefore not a settled issue as to which should take precedence, but it would seem reasonable that they are not enemies of each other.

It is not unusual for members of the UWI community with a public role to speak without having any consultations with any particular set of experts on the matter. While these issues are subjects that we teach at MSBM, we cannot, as a collective, identify any definitive body of contemporary work that is of such a seminal nature, and that reflects such an overwhelming consensus, that it should invariably be cited by public-facing leadership in any presentation.

A clear positive outcome from this episode, however, is that it could sharpen the ongoing debate about the kind of balance that needs to be found between the essential benefits to workers, and the cost that must be borne by employers. This is a debate that the MSBM will be happy to engage in, and will be having more to say on in the future.

MONA SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT