MOU Convergence

The Monitoring Committee (MC), consisting of both government and union officials institutionalized dialogue as a practice in the governance of the implementation of the MOU. The MC demonstrated value by becoming a responsive mechanism and sounding board for preventative, dispute resolution, and for engaging in joint decision making. The unions rejuvenated their own discourse practice and acquired new avenues of influence in relation to public administration policy decisions. While the private sector occupied a position of self-exclusion, leadership engendered collaborative governance obfuscating the political divide, enabling the Monitoring Committee to consolidate the accord. The inclusion of discourse as a moment in actor networks is advocated as a means to reveal the inner operations and network interactions within the “black box,” rendering the impenetrable, penetrable.

MOU Convergence

The origin and elements contributing to the emergent characteristics of “traditional” public sector discourse and practice are explored contextualized to the Jamaican state. Dimensions of these traditional characteristics are subsequently altered and contested in the process of the public sector actor network being translated through convergence into the MOU actor network of relations. Text, representative of struggle, and discoursal contests emerge, reflective of the rigour of the convergence process. Texts reveal outcomes in terms of governance for the sector as the public sector responds to the inscription as well as embracing new genres and social practices with the operationalization and inculcation of MOU discourse and practice. CDA is valued as an approach to examine and probe the nature of the connectivity in and between actor networks of the MOU social partnership and reveal the implications for the traditional discourse and practice of the public sector.

Actor Network Theory (ANT)

Actor network theory (ANT) or the “sociology of translation,” is introduced, being a systematic way to explain the mechanics and dynamics of relational interactions, within networks. The unique ontology of ANT equates human and non-human systems thereby conferring the MOU social partnership agreement with the status of an actor. The text within the MOU Agreement as an intermediary becomes the inscription, enabling the agreement to obtain having a discourse of its own and the capacity to attain a “black box” status within the network of relations that it creates for itself. ANT's strengths and weaknesses, critiques and value are highlighted as well as its suitability to be used to analyse network relations partnering with critical discourse analysis methodology.

Social Partnerships

The pattern from international experience suggests that social partnerships emerge as forms of governance reflecting to a broadened governance capacity, which enables better governance of the political system. Crisis has been a catalyst for the co-opting of multiple stakeholders into governance models globally, which resonates the global context with the local context of Jamaica. In the previous chapter, the global, regional, and national contextual frames within which the discourses around Jamaica's social experience could be located were established. In the context of Jamaica, reasons are posited to account for the low pursuance of tripartite social partnership and why deeper models appear elusive or limited in scope. This would suggest that other factors of context, culture, issues of power, capacity, structure, and institution have an influence in determining modalities and models.

Social Partnership

Social partnership is a dynamic construction tailored to the context of globalization, the state, time, society, and culture. Snapshots of the experiences of regions and countries globally with modalities of social partnership arrangements are discussed. Further, global reflections on the contexts from which social partnerships were forged—economic chaos and recovery, weak political governance capacities, fractured political regimes, financial instability and governance responses, such as the institutionalization of social dialogue and social partnerships as prerequisites for European accession—are highlighted. Social partnership becomes the outcome of adjustments made by governments, sometimes reluctantly, in power-sharing arrangements, incorporating multiple actors and stakeholders in the way societies are reorganized, to respond and treat with destabilizing forces in the struggle for self-preservation. The chapter concludes around the value and benefits of social partnership as well as some recommendations for effective social dialogue arrangements.

MOU Convergence

Several historical, sociocultural, and political dimensions have shaped the development and the discourse and practice of the trade union movement. The characteristics of “traditional” trade union discourse and practice are explored, providing a contextual understanding for the contest, challenge, and change evidenced by the process of translation into the MOU actor network. There are several implications for the “identity,” “relational,” and “ideational” aspects of trade union discourse and industrial relations practice by convergence with the MOU actor network. However, while relationships within the black box of network interaction affords the union movement prominence and access to the powerful halls of leadership and governance, the union constituency becomes contested in acceding to discoursal change and practice resulting in “boxing and dancing” within the new context of diminished adversarialism.

Convergence

Actor network theory as the “sociology of translation,” is used as a lens to examine the chronology of the development of the MOU Agreement, which provides insight into the mechanics of its formation and network of relations. Translation uncovered dimensions of the network's development: why associations between the actors were created, the factors that mobilized these heterogeneous parties to come together. Further, it also uncovered how their functions were ascribed and how stability or “black box” status was achieved. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is positioned as a moment in ANT facilitating the analyses of the network linkages of the MOU actor network assist to identify the interactions at various levels of the MOU social partnership actor network. The two worldviews complement each other within an interpretivist framework revealing the potential to analyse network interactions through the lens of discourse.

Context

Globalization has played a transformative role with respect to social processes filtering from the global into the realm of the local. Governance and its modalities within globalization are highlighted and crisis elements are deconstructed leading to a discussion on key crisis “moments” within Jamaica's history, which together create the context from which the Public Sector Memorandum of Understanding Agreement or “MOU” social partnership emerged. The fragility of the Jamaican macroeconomy and key catalysts that precipitated the negotiations are examined as well as insight into issues of governance driving the decision making of the partners. A synopsis of the Public Sector Memorandum of Understanding or “MOU,” namely, the principles, provisions, and areas of restraint, as well as specific measures in the areas of health, education, and fire services managed by local government, is highlighted. Social partnership emerges as a governance response to crisis.

Social Partnership

This chapter explores themes surrounding social partnership, the epistemological and etymological relations of social dialogue, models, and associated themes. Theories, concepts, and dimensions of social partnership, its characteristics, emergence, and etymology are deconstructed. Various perspectives on the meaning and interpretation of associated interpretive themes such as partnership, trust, mutual benefit, and social capital are explored, including typologies of partnership. This conceptual review covering social partnership examines the discourses and knowledge associated with social partnerships and the philosophy of social partnership. The language of partnerships and social dialogue are embedded within the context of the International Labour Organization's (ILO) epistemological discourse and practice. This chapter provides a comprehensive framework for the purposes of understanding and identifying the philosophies within the current global discourses of social partnership and an appreciation of how our experiences have been influenced and interpreted through the lens of the parameters of the global discourses.

Reflections

This chapter contemplates governance and condenses salient themes operable from the perspective of the implementation of the MOU social partnership agreement, its discoursal effect, and governance effect upon the relations of the partners in the network. Reflections are made on the implications of the MOU social partnership agreement as a governance mechanism for the partners—the public sector, the trade unions, and industrial relations practice—and their discourses in all their dimensions, which encourages change engendering the deepening of governance.