Dear Editor,
One hopes that one of Minister Nadir’s New Year resolutions will include being honest with himself. Hopefully in the process he will learn how much more enduring and respected principle is, as distinct from the practice of political expediency.
The Minister, like others, must remind himself that his conduct of the business of his office, is more than a personal responsibility, and one to be discharged on behalf of the constituency of Guyana’s workers, and the nation as a whole.
The issue of foreign employers and employment can only increase with foreign investment in, and the consequential expansion of small economies as, for example, obtain in Caricom. So that decisions taken regarding relationships between employers and employees, and particularly foreign employers and their employees, must not be restricted to parochial political considerations, but must always take account of the occurrence of comparable vulnerabilities in the foreign employment sub-sector of sister Caricom countries.
Every related decision must be informed by a sense of consistency in principle and application of the employment ethics by foreign investors. In other words each member state must regard its conduct of affairs as accountable to the other.
The recent outburst against the foreign owners of the bauxite industry should be seen as a chastening experience for an institution which for too long ‘pussy-footed’ in addressing explicitly and expeditiously the fundamental rights of workers, grounded in international conventions, to which all countries, including Guyana, subscribe.
With the (mis)behaviours of a Barama also surreptitiously swept under the carpet, the proclaimed tolerance of the Ministry of Labour has earned the disrespect now complained of. As one local parlance puts it ‘the (milch) cows have come home to roost.’
It is now left to the subject Minister to effect the action contemplated in his pronouncements in the interest of good governance and our national self-respect. Otherwise there may be the prospect of his being let out to pasture.
Yours faithfully,
E B John
