Wherever I go in the Caribbean these days I find myself meeting informally with groups of friends and colleagues - ordinary people, in most instances - who have a sense of what is happening in their own communities and in their respective countries across the region; and the more I have indulged in this exercise the more I discover things that are revealing, not only about the people of the region, how they live, what their concerns are, what their perspectives are about their own societies, their governments, their leaders - whether those leaders be politicians or employers - and their trade unions. And the first conclusion that I have drawn from this exercise is that, contrary to what we sometimes believe the people of the Caribbean are neither indifferent nor insensitive to what is happening in their own countries nor in the region as a whole or the ways in which what is happening is impacting on their personal lives, the lives of their families and on their future.

The other important discovery that I have made is that there appears to be a growing commonality of concerns among Caribbean people; we live, I believe, in a region of shared challenges, common fears and if indeed that is the case then I want to suggest to you that there is also a commonality in the solutions.

Arising out of all this it seems to me that the Caribbean is facing its own globalization - a process of discovery that we can no longer treat with the notion of Caribbean Unity as though it were a mere catchphrase. I believe that there is a very real imperative for us to see ourselves - all of us as Caribbean people - as being in one tiny balahoo - that is, a small, crudely built, very vulnerable boat - battling a global Tsunami over which we have little control; hoping, praying, that at the end of the storm we would have survived.

What I have also tried to do is to develop an analysis of these outcomes of my discourses with people across the region against the backdrop of what it could possibly mean for labour in the region. In the process I have made some interesting and, in some cases, worrying discoveries. One of those discoveries, perhaps the most important of them, is that the labour movement in the region appears not to be entirely aware of that Caribbean globalization of which I spoke earlier and has therefore not fashioned any real agenda to respond to that challenge. Both institutionally and intellectually, labour is lagging in terms of its capacity, first, to effectively represent the interests of its own constituency and, secondly, to play its legitimate role in seeking to respond to the challenges facing Caribbean societies as a whole.

Indeed, what I have discovered in some cases is that the challenges arising out of the new regional and global agenda have coincided with a seeming loss of confidence in labour. It is, in some instances, as if workers have decided that they will hitch their sails to some other mast, that labour is simply not up to the challenge of contemporary worker representation.

Or is it that we have lost our constituency to changing circumstances? Is it that what globalization really means is that worker representation is limited to the terms and conditions of the employer/employee contract and that there really is no need for labour any longer? Ironically, and I intend to return to this theme a little later, that, decidedly, is not the case. What I would describe as the new workers agenda renders the role of labour every bit as important today as it has ever been. We need to be absolutely clear about that.

The labour movement in Antigua must of course make its own determination as to whether or not it continues to be relevant, whether or not it is perceived by the workers of this country as being relevant and whether or not, in a broader context, it has a legitimate place as what I would describe as a key stakeholder in the society.

What has emerged from what I have said so far is that this cannot be a parochial presentation that concerns Antigua alone. I wa nt to talk with you about things Caribbean since our circumstances no longer allow us to get ourselves into little compartments. I believe that too often what we say about Caribbean unity and about the need to work together for common solutions to common problems is no more than insincere patronage, lip service. At heart, many of us in the region are insular, insecure and wary about the motives of those whom we call brother or sister from elsewhere in the Caribbean. That is something which our leaders, for all the lip service that they too have paid to Caribbean unity has not been able to change.

I want to talk to you, therefore, about Caribbean issues. That is what I want to talk to you about today.

If some of you may be inclined to think that my address really ought to be about things that are directly concerned with the labour movement in Antigua, let me say this; what I have discovered during my comings and goings in this region is that the Caribbean labour movement can no longer afford to see itself in those insular terms. I have said before that the problems and challenges of the region are, in an overwhelming number of instances, identical and that the solutions, in those instances, are both identical and shared; it is the same with the labour movement. The responses of labour therefore, must be underpinned by that unity of purpose. Otherwise, we would have missed the bus.

So that if I were asked to speak at a forum of this nature in St. Kitts or Grenada or St. Lucia or Guyana I would probably find myself delivering the same address and focusing on the same issues because, as I said earlier, all of us are really in the same boat.

This, in my view, brings us to a critical juncture and I will assist you in arriving at that juncture by posing these questions. Have we, perhaps, arrived at a place where we need to completely overhaul the way we think and act as a regional labour movement? Have we arrived at a juncture where we need to extend our ambition to begin to think of what a would describe as a second attempt at Federation, this time, a Federation that brings together the collective capacities of the regional labour movement? Can we dare to think of a union of labour that sets aside the age-old formula of individual labour unions that are divided in their organization while, in fact, sharing the same purpose? And if indeed that is the direction in which we ought to go, do we have the capacity and the courage to break down the barriers that would enable us to succeed where the earlier attempt at a West Indian Federation failed?

It is, of course, not for me to seek to answer these questions on my own. I raise them, however, because I believe that they are food for thought not only here in Antigua but in the Caribbean as a whole. And when we come to consider these questions we need to remind ourselves that, at its core, labour is about the unity of the workers and that if we can mould that concept into a common, region-wide focus we are bound to be far stronger.

Just a few days ago myself and some friends in Guyana were sitting over a meal of cook-up-rice and coconut water in Georgetown Guyana and dreaming. I say dreaming because we were talking about this very issue of Caribbean unity at the level of labour. We ventured, what was in fact a meal that prepared myself, to envisage a Caribbean Federation of Teachers; A Caribbean Federation of Mine Workers; A Caribbean Federation of Public Servants and a whole range of Caribbean Federations of various categories of workers. Then we begun to talk about the collective strength that workers in the region could draw from these Federations and about the fact that one of the inevitable consequences of these Federations is that employers and governments would have no choice but to take us seriously.

At that 'sitting' we agreed that part of the reason why, in some countries in the Caribbean the trade union movement and, by extension, the workers were being divided, was because as separate Caribbean unions, we are, in many instances, weak. We agreed that if could arrive at a place where we were obligated to look our for one another, the workers that we represent would be far less vulnerable to abuse.

As I said earlier, we were simply dreaming over my cooking. (and here I hope that you recognize that, among other things, I am making a case for the quality of my cooking. I believe that good cooking can in fact give rise to the most fanciful thinking) But then who knows where those dreams can take us?

About a week ago during an interview with a newspaper in Guyana I was asked to provide a perspective on the implications of the Caribbean Single Market for the labour movement in the Caribbean. I said to the interviewer that it seemed to me that the process of moving investments and jobs across the region in an unhindered manner - which is part of what the Single Market is al about - would have the most profound implications for the regional labour movement since it would affect employment and the movement of jobs in the region. I made the point too that those countries in the Caribbean whose economies were least competitive would probably become most vulnerable since, presumably, those countries would be less well-positioned to compete in such an environment. If, for example, your ability to secure markets for the goods and services that you provide is greater than another country in the region then it seems to me that you are likely to benefit much more from the provisions of the Single Market.

My point here has to do with the response of the trade union movement to the Single Market. If the problems are common to the region - though they may vary in their intensity from on territory to another - then, I submit - there is room for common solutions.

I believe, therefore, that what the Single Market has done is to compel the regional labour movement to respond appropriately, to work together if it is to provide the best possible solutions to the challenge that inhere in the CSM. We are compelled to work together because all of us are similarly affected by a Single Market that is as replete with challenges as it is with opportunities.

The advent of the Caribbean Single Market is - in my view - one of a number of issues that comprise what I have described as the new agenda which the regional labour movement must confront and address. There is the issue of climate change and its implications, perhaps, for the very existence of the Caribbean. One of the changes that the issue of Climate Change and The Environment has brought about is a global reconfiguration of Health and Safety issues. Time was, when issues of Health and Safety were issues that were confined to the parameters of the Collective Labour Agreement between employer and employee. That is no longer the case. Issues of the environment and those of Health and Safety are now national, regional and international concern. What this means is that the trade union movement finds itself having to deal with an issue that is no longer confined to the Collective Labour Agreement. Our discourses with employers of Health and Safety are, these days, taking place within the broader confines of national and international laws and conventions that set certain standards to which we must all adhere.

It seems to me, therefore, that issues of climate change and the environment ought to become part of that specialized body of knowledge and information on which the labour movement must inform itself. More than that we must become part of that process that influences the creation of a body of national, regional and international law that is as effective at protecting the workers that we represent as it is at preserving and protecting the environment of our region. Then there is the issue of HIV/AIDS on the region. It is by no means accidental that the International Labour Organization (ILO) has been highly visible and particularly active in the global response to HIV/AIDS. For me, what is also significant, is that the advent of HIV/AIDS has spawned a commonality of interest between employers and employees in the region that have created unprecedented levels of partnership that are reflected in the advent of HIV/ AIDS Workplace Committees. It is clear that these partnerships have arisen out of the fact that the advent of this global malady threatens the interests of both employers and employees and that they have a common vested interest in working together to fashion responses.

I believe that these alliances that have been fashioned out of necessity can serve as springboards for an enhanced level of cooperation between employer and employee in other spheres and I believe that this is one of the great challenges facing the regional labour movement - to use those alliances to secure gains for the workers that go beyond the substantive issue of responding to HIV/AIDS.

A great deal has already been said by the political leaders of the region about what has come to described as the global economic meltdown and what it means or could mean for the region. The consequences are, of course, already evidenced, first, in the mad scramble for regional food security and secondly, in the loss of jobs in those sectors of regional economies that are most dependent on extra-regional markets. I have already said it and I will say it again: there is a degree to which we in the Caribbean have only ourselves to blame for the fact of a looming economic crisis. What is manifesting itself in the Caribbean today is a consequence of an abysmal failure to implement programmes and policies envisaged four decades and more ago, during the immediate post - independence period for reducing our dependence on external markets, for strengthening our capacity to feed ourselves and to help feed the rest of the world., for diversifying our economies away from sectors that were either totally dependent on foreign patronage or were deficient in terms of the value that they added to the raw materials that we produced. It will be recalled too, that while some of our leaders have been preaching the virtues of what they described then as South-South Cooperation, this has never really been actualized in terms of establishing strong trading relationships with the rest of the hemisphere, for example. In essence, what I am saying is this: The fact that we appear to be able to do no more than sit and wait for the crisis to deluge us like a tidal wave has to do, in large measure, with our failure to build the kind of defences (some Caribbean leaders are now describing these as fire walls) that have now become so necessary in terms of what appears to be about to descend upon us.

The problem is that the crisis is complex and that sometimes the solutions that we posit are themselves undermined by the nature of the crisis. I recall that some months ago Caribbean leaders appeared to have warmed to what was described as The Jagdeo Initiative - which in essence is a plan to increase food production in the region by attracting local, regional and international investment in huge agricultural projects in the Caribbean, particularly Guyana, where the land is available. But there is a stumbling block that has hit this initiative to which the President of Guyana gas already conceded. The global economic crisis may well have reduced both the capacity and the willingness of potential investors to buy into this project. The upshot of this is that even now, President Jagdeo finds himself in the United States seeking to persuade investors to pay an interest in the his regional food plan. Just a few months ago the plan was underpinned by the assumption that it represented viable investment and that the investors would come. Now that the global economic crisis is with us we have to go looking for those investors. That is the scale of the dilemma that confronts us.

We may well ask ourselves what does all this have to do with the labour movement in the Caribbean? I believe, first of all, that what we have neglected to do as a region over the years, is to allow all of the various stakeholders in our development process to contribute to the shaping and implementation of development thinking and development policies. I believe that Caribbean politicians - most of them, in my view - are guilty of seeking to occupy every conceivable space on the socio-political landscape so that the rest of us merely follow where they lead. I believe that there have been and continue to be many instances where the rhetoric of social partnership is just that - rhetoric and that the reality is no more than a political game in which our political leaders are concerned only with burnishing their images. I believe that we are far too riddled with divisions of - in some cases - race, or class, or separateness of interests and think that there are valuable lessons that we can and must learn from what all of America - not just Barak Obama - but all of America - accomplished a few weeks ago. The outcome of the November elections in the United States demonstrates that even in a country that has long been divided by issues of race and class, people can come together. It suggests that there are moments in time where interests converge and where critical issues are at stake and where people rise above differences. I doubt that there is a single Caribbean Leader who has not hailed Barak Obama - the first black man to be elected President of the United States. The irony of that tribute is that all of us are aware that race is not the critical issue here. What happened in America a few weeks was about a national broad-mindedness that brought people of different races, classes and interests together; and if that did not happen all the wishing and hoping and praying would not have put Barak Obama in office.

The lesson is as stark as it is obvious but I will spell it out anyway. What Caribbean leaders and, I might add, Caribbean trade unions, ought to be preaching to their constituencies is that we too have arrived at that juncture where we need to seize the moment, to recognize that we have arrived at that juncture where the convergence of our interests as a people, as a Caribbean people, demand that we make that quantum leap, that we going together the slay the ghosts of those vices that continue to cause us to pay a transparently meaningless lip service to goals, the achievement of which require a courage and a conviction that we sorely lack.

What about the trade union movement itself? It makes little sense, it seems to me, to constantly point our fingers elsewhere - at governments, for example - when we ourselves are guilty, in some cases, of the same vices; like failure to enlighten ourselves regarding our role in a changing international society; like a sense of contentment with an old-fashioned approach to managing the labour movement that sees struggle only in the context of ensuring adherence to the basic tents of the Collective Labour Movement; like failure among leaders in the movement to develop their personal selves and their capacity to manage the unions that they serve; like, in some instances, abandoning service to the workers and using the trade union as an instrument for personal elevation; like the suppression, in some cases, of a succeeding generation of leaders of the movement without which the movement can only die. What about those us who have become armchair unionists, whose preoccupation with the bureaucracy of the movement has placed us at a distance from the workers? How equipped are we for the challenges that inhere in the new agenda?

I myself believe - and I will say it bluntly - that the time has come for an injection of new leadership into the movement. We need younger, brighter, more energetic leaders; leaders with the capacity to respond wherever the challenge may arise. Those of us who lead today must begin to contemplate our own retirement for continuity, succession is the single foundation of which society is built. What we must do is to endure that we leave the movement in safe and committed hands.

I throw these issues us for your consideration in the same way that I seek throw then out wherever I go in the region. For however much we delude ourselves change has to come if the movement is to remain relevant and if there is not to be a total loss of confidence in labour among the workers of the region at a time when they need labour most.