Dear Editor,
This letter serves to set the record straight. Contrary to statements made by frequent writer, Mr. Sasenarine Singh, in his blog to my letter “These workers had never previously raised concerns about GB&GWU’s internal matters” (SN 28/3/2010), I was never employed by the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc so I could not have been among the “58 let go” and received a “severance pay” as he definitively writes. In other societies, someone of Singh’s professed repute would care about his image and double check his ‘facts’ before rushing to publish unless, perhaps I have misread his writings and I am according him a stature he never tried to cultivate.
The Union is fully aware the five-month old unresolved dispute would receive support from those respecting of laws and the rights of bauxite workers and non-support from those who have no regard for such decency. I think I understand from Singh’s writing why he wants NAACIE at BCGI since he has made an argument of NAACIE’s inherent superiority that he has not proven even as he insinuates financial impropriety at the GB&GWU.
Who would believe that an issue involving the violations of rights and law would descend to the level where persons, including Singh, are barefacedly writing lies and engaging in cheap politics? Who could have believed our country would have reached this nadir when guilt or the sense of decency is no longer a deterrence for such behaviour. There is this view that if you repeat a lie often enough it will become a ‘fact’, destroy the integrity of the targeted persons and tarnish the image of their organization which then becomes the prop to justify denying them what’s rightfully theirs. We have seen this playbook before and it will not work. The Union is going to push back with every fibre in our being and call out the liars. Over the years we have abided by the laws, blazed the trail on struggles and achievements, some of which have been used as benchmarks by others and some given to others even as it is now taken away from us. We have done what’s right for the workers and guard our reputation zealously. No one will be allowed to tarnish it for any self serving end.
Yours faithfully
Leslie Gonsalves
General Secretary (ag.)
GB&GWU
