Trade Unions in the 21st century

Now that the razzmatazz and hoopla of the Labour Day parades are behind us, maybe it is time for a hard look at the changing relevance of the institution of “trade unionism” itself. As we rightfully boast, Guyana was a pioneer in launching a trade union over a century ago in 1919 by the pioneering Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow.
However, in noting the latter›s fight for universal suffrage, we should recognise that it was soon hived off to political parties formed by individuals like Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham, who became members and leaders of trade unions; we should appreciate their functions will change. One constant has been the increasingly smaller numbers of workers who are represented by trade unions over the course of time.
This miniaturisation has been the result of a confluence of forces – one from a massive shift in the overarching dominant economic paradigm from post-WWII liberalism to neoliberal principles that were interpreted by their champions in the US (Ronald Reagan) and the UK (Margaret Thatcher), who viewed trade unions and big Government as fetters on productivity.
Their Governments intervened directly to delegitimise trade unions, and as the economic principles were imposed on much of the developing world, Governments in the latter also began to question the efficacy of trade unions. In the particular circumstances of Guyana after 1989, when the country was forced into practising neoliberal principles, trade unions that had historically supported one or the other of the two major political parties, the PPP and PNC, interpreted, for instance, the privatisation drive that reduced the workforce in the Government-owned “commanding heights of the economy” as “political”.
In Government institutions, the demand for greater efficiencies led to a new norm of hiring non-union “contract workers” who were not bound to what were seen as archaic work practices that led to low productivity.
But changes in the traditional “productive” workplaces, such as the mammoth reduction of the traditional mainstay of the coastal Guyanese economy – the sugar industry – and its interior counterpart, the bauxite industry, played an even greater role in redefining the role of trade unions. In the meantime, our Governments, which defined themselves as representing the “working class”, boasted about introducing laws that addressed the needs of workers without the need for traditional union practices, such as withholding the labour of workers in “strikes”. This process has accelerated in the last two decades, where the Governments refer to neoliberal market principles to arrive at “optimum wage rates” within the entire economy.
In the developed countries where the miniaturisation of trade unionism was initiated, new developments have been demanded by a 21st-century economy, where the “workplace” itself has been disintegrating. They are defined by AI algorithmic management; gig work-characterised by freelance and short-term contracts; remote labour; and deep political polarisation that trade unions will have to address if they are to survive. Fundamentally, the challenge for unions is that the activities of unions were built on the idea of a stable, physical workplace where employees clocked in, worked side-by-side, and clocked out. These new sectors have high turnover and precarious employment, which traditional labour unions struggle to confront.
The gig business model severs the traditional employer-employee relationship. By classifying workers as “independent contractors” rather than employees, these platforms bypass the labour laws entirely. If the gig model of “employment via contract” becomes the norm, the traditional mechanism of unionisation – the workplace election – becomes impossible. There’s no “bargaining unit” to define if every worker is a separate business entity; it shifts the overhead costs of employment, vehicles, insurance, and downtime onto the worker while the platform retains algorithmic control over the means of production.
In the modern workplace, the manager is often not a human being but an algorithm. “Algorithmic management” refers to the use of sophisticated data collection and automated decision-making systems to monitor, evaluate, and discipline workers in real-time. With the increased use of AI systems, this will increase exponentially.
How will unions respond to these challenges in addition to the influx of immigrant workers and the incipient importation of workers to service the “fastest growing economy in the world”?