The Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) is dismissing a recommendation for the establishment of a tripartite board as a solution for restoration of the monthly US$2.9 million subvention the government has withdrawn from the institution.
The recommendation, which President of the Federation of Independent Trades Union of Guyana (FITUG) Carvil Duncan made, is for the tripartite board to comprise representatives of the GTUC, FITUG and government.
Government withdrew the CLC subvention in August 2007 and has not budgeted for it this year, citing the need for trades union unity as a pre-condition for its restoration of the funding.
GTUC Acting General Secretary Norris Witter told Stabroek News last week that the suggestion by Duncan for a tripartite board comprising the two umbrella trades union organisations and the government was “not only ludicrous but it exposes the ignorance of those making the suggestion to the use tri-partisanship in labour.”
Witter, who is also vice-chairman on the CLC Board of Directors, said tripartite arrangements, according to the International Labour Organsation (ILO), refer to the private sector and the government.
For Duncan to suggest that the government was not represented on the CLC board was not factual, Witter said noting that the Government of Guyana was represented on the board by representatives from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour.
“If they are going to suggest a tripartite arrangement with labour and the government only, they are going to rule out some other stakeholders including the representatives of the public and private sectors and even the University of Guyana, which, though an autonomous body, is state-owned,” he said.
On the allocation of space for programmes, he said the board has always invited all the unions, irrespective of whether they were members or not.
He said it was untrue to say that the immediate past principal Dr Rupert Roopnaraine had introduced something that was already in place all along. He said it was because some unions were not taking up the places allotted to them, that Roopnaraine took extra steps to engage them personally, in an attempt to get them to be involved.
‘They got to come again’
Duncan’s statement that the withdrawal of the CLC subvention could be resolved by the establishment of his version of a tripartite arrangement, Witter said, confirmed what the TUC has always said, that the resuscitation of FITUG was politically motivated to fragment and weaken the labour movement in the interest of the ruling regime.
He said the withdrawal of the GTUC’s subvention and subsequently the CLC’s were clearly acts of financial destabilisation intended to crush an independent labour movement and to realise what the PPP failed to do in 1953 and in 1961. During those years, he said, the PPP failed to impose legislation on the backs of Guyanese people to grab total control of the political, economic, social and industrial space within the country.
Rejecting the suggestion from Duncan on behalf of the GTUC and the CLC board, Witter said it was stupid and was a blatant attempt to deceive the public. “They got to come again,” he said.
It was not surprising, he said, “when one observes the adamant attitude of the government to the voices of reason over the tremendous burden that a badly implemented VAT has visited on the working people.”
He said that with the more newly constituted FITUG, the government hoped to institute legislation and other measures that would create serious hardships on the working people and even erode some of the hard fought for gains of labour.
Bill No 1 of 2007, which was an amendment to the Trades Union Recognition Certification Act, he said, was meant to give enormous powers to the Minister of Labour virtually rendering the labour movement toothless. The Bill was introduced in Parliament but no further action was taken after protest from the GTUC. The time for it to be debated has now lapsed and it is expected that the government would try to reintroduce it in Parliament.
He said the government was emboldened by a fragmented and weak labour movement that would not be strong to fight against it and as such was now attempting to increase the National Insurance Scheme pensionable age from 60 to 65, when public service workers are forced to retire at 55.
He also accused the National Association of Agricultural Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE), a member of FITUG and allied to the ruling regime, of being unable to represent workers adequately.
On the sugar estates, he said, NAACIE threatened to call a strike to back workers’ demands for better working conditions but backed off when the Office of the President intervened. He said that his comment to the union leader, Kenneth Joseph, was “when you play with the pups you are bitten by the fleas.” He said that if Joseph “wants to be in the comfort of the PPP and the government he has abide by the consequences.”
However, when contacted Joseph told Stabroek News that he took the position in the interest of protecting Guyana’s overseas sugar markets.
Joseph said that instead of strike action he took the road to arbitration because of the repercussions of loss of markets and the negative effect it would have on the category of workers NAACIE represents.
FITUG
Giving his version of the establishment of FITUG, Witter said the original FITUG was formed in 1988 when seven unions – the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU), the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), NAACIE, the University of Guyana Workers Union (UGWU), the Clerical and Commercial Workers Union (CCWU), the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union and the Guyana Mines Workers Union walked out of the GTUC in dissatisfaction over the formula that determined the allocation of delegates to conferences and representatives on the executive of the GTUC. FITUG then prepared an amendment to the GTUC’s constitution and submitted it. After a few meetings the GTUC accepted virtually all of FITUG’s recommendations, which led to the amendment of the constitution in January 1993 and a reconciliation the same year.
This current so-called FITUG, he said evolved in 1999 with the GPSU and the Federated Unions of Government Employees (FUGE) strike, which forced the government to arbitration. He recalled that during the strike, nurses and others were picketing on the John Fernandes Wharf on May 19, 1999 when the police opened fire injuring a number of nurses, a doctor and other public servants. The incident took place while the GTUC statutory executive council meeting was in progress and on receiving information, the council suspended the standing order to deliberate on the issue. It unanimously decided on a three-day strike in solidarity with the injured workers starting on May 20, 1999.
Duncan, Guyana Labour Union (GLU) General Secretary, he said informed the meeting that he had already instructed the GLU membership to proceed on strike. At the meeting were two representatives of GAWU and one from NAACIE and there was no dissenting voice. After the meeting ended, he said, the GTUC received a call from GAWU stating that GAWU was disassociating itself from the decision taken at the statutory meeting to go ahead with industrial action. GAWU subsequently wrote to the GTUC withdrawing its affiliation with immediate effect; to date NAACIE has not withdrawn its affiliation but continues to be absent, he said.
In 2000, the GTUC was informed about the resuscitation of the new FITUG with GAWU in the lead, he said.
