I would like to begin by reiterating my belief that the issue of work ethic is crucial in the context of national productivity and economic survival. In last week’s article, I suggested that one of the many factors influencing our work ethic that may be overlooked in an analysis on the question, is the Plantocracy legacy. I believe that the horrible plantation experience of our foreparents has left a negative legacy which we MUST transcend in order to facilitate our economic survival. At this point I would like to take the opportunity to issue a correction for that article. The words "ahistorical" and "acultural" were inadvertently changed in the editing process leading to a drastic change in the meaning of the sentence in which they ought to have appeared. The sentence in the second paragraph should have read "to take an ahistorical or acultural look at our work ethic would lead to erroneous conclusions." This is to say that historical and cultural references in the analysis are absolutely necessary.In today’s article, I would like to discuss four other factors which I believe are significant. One factor is that, over the past 30 to 40 odd years, there has been an apparent absence of a populist political strategy which emphasizes a pivotal role for national pride. I purport that national pride and national productivity are highly correlated. A second factor appears to be, upon emancipation of the enslaved Africans, fair wages were never paid for their labor. Current wages may have very well evolved (or have taken cue) from that initial trajectory. A third factor, I believe, is a serious lack of organizational discipline and the pervasive use of a contemptuous and antagonistic management style. A fourth and important factor appears to be climatic conditions and diet patterns.
Why is it that we seem to have less than a healthy dose of national pride? Is it that we are ashamed of our country? Do we know our heroes and heroines? Has the checkered/seesawed nature of our Anglo-French exploitations created irreparable discontinuities in our history - and are we as a result a disparate and confused flock? Or have our past governments’ preoccupation been only with stuffing their pockets and that of their friends? Perhaps we are ashamed in that in a period of 30 years of rule, we have allowed ourselves to be continually raped and plundered.
In our hemisphere, Cubans and Barbadians exemplify a healthy relationship between national pride and productivity. This has come about through planned strategic propaganda campaigns. National pride is an attitude which produces positive behavior. Attitudes are manipulated by influencing values or controlling behavior. Since the control of behavior often requires a dictatorship, we are left with the approach of influencing values. Propaganda campaigns provide a practical vehicle for achieving such an objective. It is almost axiomatic that national pride and patriotism are necessary conditions for economic progress. One can easily argue that it is difficult to find an economically progressive country that possess little or no national pride - look at Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Germany, and Singapore. All these countries have a strong work ethic that is inextricably linked to their national pride.
Eric Williams in his 1942 book "The Negro in the Caribbean", highlighted the conditions of the "Negro" wage earner in several islands at that time. After emancipation, land-less Africans who were left with little choice but to offer their labor for a wage, were existing in terrible living conditions. In 1935, it was said that a laborer in Barbados was fed worse than a prisoner. He/she could not afford the milk in their tea. Workers were earning 25 cents per day for three days a week. This worked out to approximately $39 per year. If we use a nominal steady inflation rate for salaries of 10%, then the average salary of a laborer 61 years later should be $1,088 per month. We know two things: 1) most laborers make less than $1,088 per month, and 2) with today’s prices, such a salary cannot sustain a family. The net effect of such a reality is "the dog chasing its tail syndrome". People would have to work extremely hard to make ends meet, but these ends never seem to meet. Further, people are required to work hard in less than ideal working conditions.
I believe that better wages can have a positive motivational effect under the right circumstances. Like national pride, fair wages is a necessary but insufficient condition for a strong work ethic. It is my belief that under current working conditions, doubling wages in St. Lucia would hardly result in any significant improvement in work ethic. This is not to say that workers’ salaries should not be improved. I am simply suggesting that using salary increases as a means of improving work ethic is likely to fail. The poor work ethic is both endemic and pervasive, and has other critical dimensions.
Organizational lack of discipline and professionalism appears to be a chronic problem plaguing both the public and private sector. Staff members take their cue from their managers, and if managers are ill-disciplined and unprofessional, that is precisely how the staff will behave. Many staff members echo the sentiment that managers have one set of rules for staff and one set for themselves - otherwise known as double-standards. The seriousness and potential negative impact of this problem is generally grossly under-estimated. If organizational practice is inconsistent, meetings are not held regularly, decisions are not implemented, systems and procedures are not reviewed, workers are not evaluated on the basis of performance, performance standards are not set or enforced, staff opinions are ignored, timeliness is not emphasized, a customer focus is absent, policies are violated regularly and indiscriminately without fear, staff members are not well trained, expectations of staff members are low, and managers and supervisors are unavailable and/or unapproachable, the organization must suffer from a poor work ethic. Someone pointed out to me, that if we take the same "lazy" worker and put them to work for Walmart in the US, you will get performance. What changes in this situation?
It is worth noting that hotels here in St. Lucia appear to have much less of a problem with work ethic and productivity. Some argue that many hotels operate like plantations. There is heavy supervision, managers and supervisors are contemptuous and antagonistic, workers worker under constant fear of loosing their jobs for poor performance or offending guests, and the "carrot and stick" approach to managing is the rule, of course with a lot more stick than carrot! Sometimes I am tempted to say, this may just be the only approach that will work.
The final factor that I would like to touch upon, is the climatic conditions. It is a fact that workers are less productive in warmer temperatures than in cooler ones. One becomes sluggish when it is hot. Nature forces the body to slow down to generate less body heat so that we would not create a further increase in our body temperature. To add to the problem, we have a very starchy diet, and a heavy plate of carbohydrates (bread, dasheen, yams, sweet potatoes, rice, macaroni and cheese, green figs, etc.) at lunch time does not help a bit. While I believe that temperature is an issue, one can ask, how then do we explain the low level of productivity on the part of workers who work in air-conditioned buildings? There is obviously at least one another dimension to this problem. I would conjecture however, that those who do work in AC buildings have a higher productivity rate than those who do not - albeit an inadequate productivity rate.
I was in Lyon, in the south-east of France during the month of June some two years ago, and noticed that I could not get to buy a soft drink around lunch time. It was quite hot. I was told that the stores were closed and would be re-opening from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM. I thought, "there is a smart idea, eat your lunch, stay home and rest, and return to work at 3:00 PM when your stomach has settled." Our companies are plagued by low productivity levels between 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM. Need I say why? By the time we are ready to do some work, it is time to go home. Voila! Eight hours pay for four and a half hours of work.
Improving the work ethic of the St. Lucian workforce requires improved working conditions, opportunities for staff members, descent wages, organizational discipline, good corporate values, and a concerted effort to eradicate the negative effects of the plantation legacy. Unlike our enslaved foreparents who could not have genuinely taken ownership of the organizations they were a part of, we as workers today must view ownership differently and recognize the symbiosis in the relationship with the organization. Similarly, management must recognize this symbiosis and resist the temptation to run a plantation.
Administration, staff, and governments alike, must take ownership of this malaise and put measures in place to deal with it. Failing to do so will have serious consequences for us as a nation. The banana industry is only the "tip of the Piton" and a sign of the times ahead if we do not tighten our boot straps and take this problem by the juggler.
