THE SECOND Caribbean Conference on Dispute Resolution got under way at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston, yesterday.The three-day event, being held under the theme 'Riding the Tides of Troubled Times: 21st Century Techniques for reducing the Cost of Conflicts and Disputes', is focused on promoting the systems and skills necessary to effectively resolve conflicts in business, the workplace, the court system, in communities and schools.
Robert Pickersgill, Minister of Transport and Works, spoke of the huge liability conflict incurs on areas such as commerce and the general society. "We readily appreciate at least some aspects of those costs when it is between countries and is played out to extremes, as characterised by the situation in the Middle East," he noted. "But it also is often a significant cost to businesses in the course of their regular operations."
Mr. Pickersgill, who represented the ailing Prime Minister P.J. Patterson at the function, pointed to strikes at the workplace which he said, "occurs when conflicts go unresolved between employers and workers, resulting in loss of production." Mr. Patterson, The Gleaner understands, has been sidelined by the flu.
Mr. Pickersgill added that "There is the tendency in some quarters to a narrow view of efforts to promote dispute resolution... it is thought of as something relating only to disputes between people and communities and more relevant to poor people." He stressed that such a view is "far from the reality."
The Minister lauded the Dispute Resolution Foundation (DRF) for its role in promoting mediation as a means of reducing incidents of disputes.
