The Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) has expressed concern over what it says is “the growing exclusion of groups” from having a voice in national decision-making in matters that impact their lives.
“There are telling signs of a government that no longer respects the people who finance the country’s day-to-day management,” the GTUC said in a Labour Day statement.
Noting that other workers around the world are continuing the struggle to improve their conditions of life and to rightly resist the forces desirous of keeping them shackled or reverse the process of advancement, the GTUC called on Guyanese to “learn from these global manifestations and join the line of agitators to secure our freedom through social and economic justice.”
According to the GTUC, “Silence, inactions, and timidity to take a stand for what is right are no longer options if we are desirous of moving into the 21st century.”
And on this Labour Day, the GTUC said, Guyanese must re-commit to the struggle for social and economic justice as began by our fore-parents. “Given what is taking place today it becomes opportune to assess the distance travelled, how much have been achieved, how much we have lost and what it requires to achieve the creation of a just society,” the trade union umbrella body added.
Highlighting other concerns, the GTUC observed that “with the average minimum wage at $34,000 per month, inflationary rate at 5 per cent, VAT 16 per cent and PAYE 33.3 per cent, it is impossible for workers to achieve self-development and the nation to emerge from poverty and deprivation.”
“These dire economic straits are making Guyanese more dependent on the barrel and remittance avenues to provide basic amenities that they should be able, through work, to achieve self-sufficiency,” the GTUC contended.
The trade union body also pointed out that “the gap between the have and have-not grows increasingly wider, as government officials continue to pay themselves super salaries and pensions while the average worker receives miserly wages with the government also putting in place the non-security of income in retirement by making public sector workers contractual to deny them their right to a pension.”
The GTUC argued that “this undermines efforts at creating an environment for the peaceful co-existence and development of a diverse population and requires us doing battle to stop the erosion of fundamental rights, enshrined in universal declarations, conventions and [the] Guyana Constitution.”
Against that background, the GTUC argued that if Guyanese were to honestly evaluate the progress made thus far, they would find that while political independence has been won, “the foundation required for development is being eroded everyday by a new breed of leaders who have adopted the political culture of a plantation society, where they plunder the economy at will, living a secured and high life on the sweat of the poor and dispossessed.”
The GTUC then advocated that Guyanese unite around a “common struggle to respect the rights of self and others and to realize a secure environment where all can live out their dreams fearlessly and benefit from the fruits of this land, irrespective of one’s diversity.”
“Our diversity,” the GTUC asserted, “must be used as a springboard to unity and prosperity, but most importantly, Guyanese must hold accountable those who are elected to govern, or those who are in other leadership positions whether in trade unions, religion, government, or similar organizations.
The struggle for a better society must not only be carried out by and for organized labour, but also for the unorganized as well as those who left the workforce and those who will enter the workforce, all of whom are equally entitled to a good life, the GTUC statement added.
