Be wary of forcing BPOs to join association

THE ROAD to hell, the saying goes, is often paved with good intentions. Which is why we are wary of Gloria Henry’s proposal that it should be made mandatory for anyone entering the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry to join her Global Services Association of Jamaica (GSAJ).

The idea, stripped to core, is that it would be unlawful, or illegal, for a BPO company not to be a member of the GSAJ. That, on the face of it, would be an unreasonable restriction on trade, about which the overseers of competition would likely have something to say. But it seems to us that there are other deeper and more fundamental issues of constitutional rights and freedoms that would make Ms Henry’s suggestion, if it were accepted, a potential route to perdition.

We, of course, understand the reasons for Ms Henry’s concern, as president of an association whose members, in the midst of Jamaica’s COVID-19 crisis, have fallen under suspicion of misbehaviour on account of, maybe, one bad actor who is not a member of the GSAJ.

Of Jamaica’s more than 400 confirmed cases of COVID-19, approximately half of them are employees or connections of the Portmore, St Catherine, branch of the BPO company, Alorica.

Alorica has denied that it failed to adhere to the Government’s protocols for operating safely in the face of the new coronavirus. The health ministry insists otherwise.

ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED

As a consequence of the Alorica outbreak, the Government forced a two-week shutdown of almost the entire BPO sector, potentially jeopardising the 40,000 jobs in a notoriously footloose business from which Jamaica grosses an estimated US$500 million annually. Even with only that background, and the short notice they were able to give clients of the suspension of services, Ms Henry and her 68 company members had serious cause to worry.

Their situation is made more vexed as companies globally, spurred by COVID-19 disruptions, accelerate towards the use of artificial intelligence to complete tasks previously outsourced to workers in countries like Jamaica. These are issues that GSAJ and the Government will have to address.

However, the answers to this matter, and the questions raised by the Alorica development, are not to be found in forcing companies to join a members’ group, such as the GSAJ. It may be good if they did and adhered to the association’s principles and codes of conduct, but the GSAJ is not a regulatory agency. That, up to now, is the responsibility of the Special Economic Zone Authority, whose functions, at Section 6 (a) of the act, include to “regulate and supervise zones”. Jamaica’s BPO firms are designated stand-alone special economic zones. Further, Section 13(3) of Jamaica’s Constitution guarantees “the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association”. That applies as much to companies as it does to individuals.

Infringement of guaranteed rights are tolerated in limited circumstances, but only insofar that, according to the Constitution, the abridgement is “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”.

There is a recognition that there may be the need to curtail freedoms during periods “of public emergency and public disaster”, for which the trigger for intrusive action by the State – not private individuals or entities – is to be found, in this newspaper’s view, in Section 21 of the Constitution.

The more fundamental point here is that times of uncertainty, when there is fear and panic, usually provide the aperture through which even democratic governments may squeeze and encroach upon rights and freedoms. The beginning, often, is imperceptible.

It is a behaviour to which even the best of them should not be enticed, no matter the nobleness of the motive. In that regard, we suggest that Ms Henry should have a good, long, hard and logical think about her suggestion. She’ll be convinced of its unwisdom.