| The skyrocketing fuel and food prices throughout the world was a key area of concern at the eight-day 38th Annual Conference of the Caribbean Public Services Association (CPSA),Cheap Jerseys Online, held from July 19 last in Dominica.This issue was highlighted at a press conference hosted by the Guyana Public Service Union at its Regent Street headquarters on Thursday last.The delegates at the CPSA forum, it was noted, immediately passed a resolution requesting that CARICOM Governments move quickly to resolve the high cost of food and energy in the region.At the same time, they issued calls for greater assistance and support to the agriculture sector. They also called for a collective move to be made to seek out alternative sources of energy.While various matters were tabled and discussed, one of the notable topics presented at the forum was CARIFORUM/EU/EPA Agreements.President Bharrat Jagdeo was accorded praise for his intuitiveness in highlighting the many negative consequences which are likely to arise if this agreement is signed in its present form.A resolution requesting that CARICOM Governments withhold signing the EPA agreement and seek to re-negotiate terms that will be beneficial to the region was unanimously passed.Workers forging ahead towards regional integration, educational opportunities for the male worker in the Caribbean, history of the integration movement in the Caribbean, and labour laws and the benefits to public service employees were also among the topics discussed at the conference.The challenges young workers face in the workplace and strategies to overcome them,Cheap NFL Jerseys, role of women in Caribbean integration: past, present and future, regional integration and young people — the voice of young public sector workers, women and migration: a Caribbean public sector worker perspective, Caribbean public sector unions and globalization: the challenges and public sector response also attracted the attention of the delegates.At the conference, the practice of good governance was also a point of pivotal discussion throughout the conference. The delegates felt that governments in the region fell short of this practice.Lengthy discussions followed this topic as it was brought to the table. Guyana was singled out as a country that appears not to be practising good governance.Coming from these discussions,Aron Baynes Jersey, a resolution was unanimously passed calling on the Heads of Government of CARICOM to collectively ensure that,NFL Jerseys China, within their member states, all public officers act in accordance, and with due respect to, the rule of law and in strict adherence to the principles of good governance.Reports from the conference said that the delegates were “quite conscious of the economic and political situations existing in the region.”Full access to the University of the West Indies (UWI) was the concern of island nations like St. Vincent and the Grenadines and St. Lucia.The representatives of these nations expressed their concern that they do not benefit from all the programmes offered by the UWI.Following this, a resolution was unanimously passed insisting that the governments of the non-campus countries mandate the UWI to provide all programmes offered at UWI to those non-campus countries.Guyana was represented at the conference by three delegates from the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) and 14 observers.Mortimer Livan, the Economic Research and Development Assistant on the Council of the GPSU,Cheap Jerseys, and one of the Guyanese delegates to the conference said that the theme of the conference was ‘Workers Forging Ahead as Catalysts to Regional Integration.’In light of the theme,Jerseys NBA China, the delegates were separated into different groups (men, women and youth), and examined related topics discussed by various panellists.Numerous committees were formed at the conference, and the GPSU, through Vera Naughton, its Education Officer, was elected as a member of the Education Committee of the CPSA.The CPSA comprises 17 affiliates from 15 countries in the English-speaking Caribbean. The purpose of the annual meeting is to provide a forum where the business of the CPSA can be discussed and recommendations on the way forward can be made.The CPSA conferences are rotated in alphabetical order around the 15 different countries which comprise the CPSA. The next CPSA conference will be held in Grenada in 2009. |
