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its leaders, the PSE was renamed the PEO in 1947 (Pan Cyprian Labour
Fédération). After long and bitter industrial disputes, ruthlessly suppressed by
colonial authorities particularly in the late 40's, PEO increasingly became the victim
of Grivas' pathological anti-communism 88 . EOKA 89
"executed" some leading PEO
members during their campaign of violence in the mid-fifties. In 1959 the
Employers Consultative Association was formed from the few small, disorganised
employer associations.
Concealing this recent history of mutual antagonism, the infrastructure for
subséquent "tripartism", affecting labour relations and employment législation, has
its roots in these developments. The more broadly corporatist policy which formed
the basis of development planning and implementation ever since independence, was
created to respond to these largely grass roots developments in the colonial era.
Consultative Committees, commissioned after independence, form a major element
of the planning process. They are made up of government officiais and
représentatives from employer and trade unions organisations and meet to coordinate
economic policy.
Whilst Greek-Cypriot "tripartism" appeared to come into its own immediately
following war and de facto division in 1974, the importance of the broad
consultative element in the development and implementation of economic policy
needs further analysis if the response to the challenges of the 1970's is to be fully
understood. On cursory examination, collective bargaining seems to have had a
positive (if not indispensable) contribution to planning in the immediate post-war
period, though most of the benefits appear to have been more politicai than
economic. The evidence suggests, however, that collective bargaining worked in
88 See Adams 1971, op. cit. p.46, Mayes (S. 1981. Makarios: A Biography. London: Macmillan) p.
24.
89 EOKA: Ethniki Organosis Kypiou Agoniston (National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters).
107