Dear Editor,
My heart bleeds for the TUC as I watch the government’s treatment of organised labour and the behaviour of some labour leaders. As a former trade unionist, I participated in many trade union conferences in the 1970s and 1980s. Those were the days when the workers’ cause was foremost, and many sense it was given tacit support by the government. Many trade union leaders from the public service, bauxite and sugar unions engaged in fierce and passionate debates within the unions’ walls and struggled on the streets for workers’ rights.
Working conditions today are at their worst since independence. There is no equity in treatment for workers across the divide. Were a comparison to be made the differences are stark. Under the PNC administration the productive sectors (sugar and bauxite) were lumped together and enjoyed the same type of benefits; the same can be said for the Cooperative Financial (COFA) institutions (NIS, GAIBANK, Mortgage Finance, GCIS, GNCB) and the traditional civil servants (teachers and public servants). Under the PPP government sugar workers get preferential treatment, the public service agency shop has been taken away, COFA is almost non-existent (only NIS standing) and the traditional civil servants are being denied by manipulated five year agreements, ignoring collective bargaining, and the injection of contract workers.
I remember in the late 1970s (I think 1979) the bauxite unions six week strike against the government wage freeze. It was Joseph Pollydore who challenged the government at a May Day Rally. I can still hear the gutsy voice of the Caribbean Fox sending the warning to the Burnham administration that the TUC will take their protest to the fields and factories. This militancy led to the government’s modification of the wage freeze; delivering a victory for the workers.
Many who followed and/or participated in organised labour knew of the trade union days under the PNC administration. This militancy was largely supported by the PPP and WPA oppositions. Cheddi Jagan in his attendance to conferences and rallies condemned the Economic Recovery Programme (he called it the Empty Rice Pot), wages, government control of state media and corruption and the need for the independence of the trade unions. The unions and leaders are now divided along the very lines that united them under the PNC administration.
During those times many considered turbulent labour/government relations, there was never any economic strangulation of the TUC and Critchlow, now prevalent under the PPP. The PPP is the only government that has chosen to use economics as a weapon to strangle and ultimately kill the militancy of some sectors in organised labour.
I remember Lincoln Lewis from bauxite, Komal Chand and Donald Ramotar from sugar, and Nanda Gopaul from NAACIE unions standing together as brothers (in labour language) during the PNC administration. These men held many public meetings around the country, picketed the IMF at the Bank of Guyana, were allies/buddies in the old FITUG, fought for good governance and public accountability, the independence of the trade union and respect for trade union and human rights.
Lewis is still vocal but I notice he stands alone on one side. Chand, Ramotar and Gopaul have become silent, standing on the other side. Have Chand, Ramotar and Gopaul changed their minds, abandoned the struggles, or used the 1970s-80s struggles for their/ the party’s self serving interests. Why the silence amid the government’s glaring attempts to destroy organised labour and the college, and the herculean problems facing the country.
Yours faithfully,
(name and address
supplied)
