Labour policy in the plantation islands

This article studies the evolution of labour policy in the context of the political economy of plantation islands. In order to analyse the relationship between labour policy and various institutional factors (social, political and economic), the author discusses the development of the plantation system — its origins based on slavery and indentures, and subsequent changes resulting from problems of cultural pluralism, labour productivity, falling world market prices, and a general process of economic modernization. He concludes with a discussion of the changes in industrial relations and government labour policy which emerged after the Second World War as a result of the changed constitutional status of the islands as well as the population explosion.