When does consultation mean 'discussion and consideration,' and when does it mean 'agreement'?

Words are tricky and multifaceted. One word can imply many different things but mean only one to the person you are talking to; it may genuinely mean something opposite to what you intended. What is in your brain or in your heart may not be what comes out of your mouth, or even what another person hears you say.

People, often in debate, especially political debate about the process for appointing a police commissioner, or promises in the budget, as we have seen this week, tend to hear what they want to hear.

There used to be a legal offence taken up in all sincerity by lawyers called breach of promise when a young lady considered that the sweet words a young man had urgently whispered to her the night before were an offer of marriage, and the young man thought they were in consultation on spending the night together.

A dying man's promise to leave a piece of land or a thriving business property to his grandchildren may be interpreted by the two grandsons as meaning it should go to them alone, because in their minds, and sometimes in their ancestral cultures, property should be left only to the male descendants, but to his three sisters and their legal representatives, the word 'grandchildren' means all the grandchildren, regardless of sex or gender, and so they all should inherit equally.

In industrial relations, the exact meaning of words has long been vital and is why, in an early judgement from the Industrial Court, parties were warned that industrial relations was not a job for amateurs. One early and important award depended solely on when and whether the word 'or' meant 'and,' and when it meant 'or.' When it was to be interpreted 'inclusively' and when it was to be interpreted 'exclusively' made a large and hotly debated difference.

A more recent industrial relations discussion surrounded the meaning of the word 'consult' which appears in legislation, in human resource policies and collective agreements. The retrenchment and severance benefits legislation, for example identifies the usage when it comes to the need to retrench workers thus:

Section 5: 'The employer may enter into consultation with the Recognised Majority Union with a view to exploring the possibility of...'

In this case the word 'may' indicates that the consultation is voluntary, not a compulsory one, which reflects the reality that most employees in TT are not covered by union representation. Veteran trade unionist Cecil Paul stated recently that trade union membership had dropped from 40 to 18 per cent of the formerly unionised labour force.

If that 18 per cent includes the 80,000 public servants who are automatically registered as members of the PSA, the employed people in the private sector make up the rest of the labour force. This was last estimated at 354,000 by the CSO, so when it came to the need for consultation when non-unionised workers were facing the threat of retrenchment, the legislation added a mandatory clause.