Workers, voters and the elections Things to think about at the polls

ONE of the largest groups of voters in the 2022 elections are the cash income earning workers of Fiji. They are of all ethnic groups, males and females, young and old, in all the districts of Fiji, urban and rural.

The government that these voters elect on December 14 can have a massive impact on their material welfare and that of their families, just as they have had over the past sixteen years.

I suggest that voters who are workers think about the impact of the Fiji Government on their life savings in the Fiji National Provident Fund, which is far more than all their savings in the commercial banks, and absolutely vital in their old age.

Secondly, a sign of any decent society is how well it treats its poorest and most vulnerable workers in terms of the incomes they receive for their daily work. That can be assessed in Fiji in the last fourteen years in several ways: the Bainimarama Government’s killing of the late Father Kevin Barr’s 10 Wages Councils, the Government’s feeble attempts at national minimum wages legislation, and its harsh treatment of unionists who fight for workers rights including their wages and salaries.

The vital FNPF savings

First of all just remember that while Fiji residents’ savings deposits and term deposits amount to only $1.5 billion, most of it will belong to the rich, and workers’ share of that will be a fraction, say roughly $500 million.

In absolute contrast, worker’s savings in FNPF amount to more than $6 billion as “members’ funds”. FNPF “assets” amount to more than $8 billion.

The FNPF savings, held in workers’ own names, are therefore far more important than the savings they hold in the bank in their own names.

There is one huge difference: while the savings in the bank are all in their direct control and no one else can take a cent out of it, sadly, the savings in the FNPF are not in the control of the workers of Fiji. They are in the control of the Fiji Government, and the FNPF board members they appoint.

Do they always act in workers’ interests? The evidence indicates that they have not always done so.

Remember also that the FNPF has more assets to invest than all the commercial banks put together and FNPF investments affect all people in Fiji in myriads of ways that few ordinary people can understand. FNPF loans and investments are crucial to companies like FSC (and the sugar industry) and Fiji Airways (and the tourism industry).

So do workers control FNPF?

Who sits on the FNPF Board?

From the time FNPF was created, there were not just employers’ representatives on the Board, but also workers’ representatives, making sure that workers’ interests were safeguarded. The old annual reports list names of unionists such as James Raman, Maika Namudu, Danial Urai, Felix Anthony.

But after the Bainimarama Government took control, the employees’ representatives names gradually disappeared from the Board which became dominated by corporate employer interests close to the Bainimarama Government.

Workers’ representatives were no longer there to protect the interests of workers in the FNPF. The results have been disastrous for workers, in many ways some of which are obvious and some not so obvious.

While the Bainimarama Government has gone to great lengths to organise the elections for unions (through the Supervisor of Elections), why have they not bothered to have true democracy for the FNPF by ensuring workers’ representatives on the FNPF Board?

The Great FNPF “Robbery”

during COVID-19

I have written about this previously (FT January 1, 2022). As part of the Government’s responses to COVID-19, the Bainimarama Government reduced FNPF contributions for employers from 18 per cent to 10 per cent for 2021. While the rate was later raised slightly to 12 per cent, workers have lost massive amounts from their life savings.

I roughly estimate that by December 31, 2022, the FNPF members will have lost more than $300 million from their FNPF balances. Most of that will have gone to boost the profits of employers.

As I wrote before: “If a robber accosted a decent law-abiding citizen on the street and violently stole $40 from him, the police would be on him like a ton of bricks. He would be arrested, charged with the unlawful theft of property, and fined or jailed or both, for his obvious crime.”

Workers have not protested in the streets because they have not felt this loss immediately. But that loss is there for sure, in the future, when these workers retire.

By then, because of the compound interest on FNPF assets, that loss will amount to more than $1 billion. What a terrible deed against the workers of this country, perpetrated by the government of the day.

We should note that also on the FNPF Board are mostly employers . Workers have a right to ask, did these board members or indeed any board member protest when the government reduced FNPF contributions?

There are also many other FNPF issues that workers should be concerned about, even if the FNPF Annual Reports have never highlighted them. These include why the pensions in 2011 were illegally reduced by 40 per cent and why the late Talei Burness,

who brought a case about it in the Fiji Courts, was denied a right to bring the case by military decree.

It might also include why the FNPF Board has not protested to the Reserve Bank of Fiji, which has stopped FNPF from investing some of its savings abroad, to diversify their portfolio.

There are many more questions that can be asked if only the boards were accountable to the FNPF members and not just to the government of the day.

So voters who have balances in the FNPF are entitled to ask all political parties, what will be their policy on FNPF board membership for workers’ representatives.

What will be the political parties’ policy on gradually restoring the FNPF contributions that workers have lost these last two years?

Luckily for voters among the Opposition parties and candidates there is at least one sensible Professor of Economics and a former Governor of the Reserve Bank who understand the economics of workers’ legitimate rights in the FNPF and who stand for true democracy and the rule of law.

The killing of the Wages Councils

The poorest workers of any country need protection from the government of the day through some legislated minimum wage.

To have one national minimum wage for all kinds of industries in Fiji like the garment industry or tourism industry, makes little economic sense, especially for those in the informal sector who are not protected by unions.

By the end of the Qarase Government in 2006, it had been accepted even by the 2006 Bainimarama Military Government, that there would be one