Jean Smith, who was an active member of the PNCR, the city council and in particular the trade union movement, died on May 1.
She was 74.
Smith reportedly passed out while preparing to go to the Labour Day march and was rushed to the hospital where she died shortly after.
According to Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) General Secretary Lincoln Lewis, Smith became a part of the movement in the mid 1970s, serving as Assistant General Secretary of the Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers. She later took over presidency in the early 90s and served as a member of the Executive Council from 1980 to the time of her death. She served in various capacities, he said, and at the time of her death she was the Assistant Treasurer and current President of the union.
Lewis further noted that Smith had been among the first group of a cadet scheme that was initiated by the Caribbean Council of Labour, which was for women primarily. The scheme advanced the work of persons like Marva Phillips, who subsequently became Head of the Trade Union Institute in the University of the West Indies, in Jamaica.
Smith served as Secretary at the Women’s Advisory Committee for a number of years and Lewis added that while she was not a frontline person or a flamboyant woman, she was politically astute. “She understood political dynamics but was not swayed by the financial and economic offerings,” he said. Lewis described Smith as a team player.
Meanwhile, Norris Witter, President of the GTUC, remembered Smith as a committed trade unionist who strongly fought for the rights of women for over 40 years.
Smith’s granddaughter, Mafloyva Wiggins, said her grandmother was loving, funny, caring, understanding, and a strong worker and always very independent. “She was the peoples’ people,” Wiggins stated.
