Dear Editor,
I hereby offer my reply to Mr Al Creighton’s letter (SN, Nov 26), ‘Executive of UG Workers’ Union has not been elected.’ Mr Creighton’s missive showers praise on the former UGWU Organizing Secretary, Mr Godfrey Adams, and a prolonged attack on me as the Vice Chairman.
Just two days before a national election, Mr Creighton finds time to expend energy on Freddie Kissoon rather than focus on what his President is doing to the university. In countless letters to the media stretching over a decade or more, I have always classified Mr Creighton as a person who has done immense harm to the university, and has worked with two others, who were the agents through which the regime maintained its hegemony at UG.
Contrary to what Mr Creighton believes, I sign less than five per cent of the documents coming out of the UGWU. I am involved in less than ten per cent of UGWU activities. Mr Creighton’s letter is an insult to a hard-working executive that is based on the university campus from nine to five unlike a lecturer like me, who is not required to be there in those hours every day.
Thirdly, it is true that I serve on the committees that Mr Creighton named. But I was nominated and voted in by the UGWU with Godfrey Adams at all times voting for me. There isn’t a Guyanese in this country who doesn’t know about the fear that has overtaken this nation. Had I refused those appointments, the UGWU would have had no representation on those bodies. Mr Creighton failed to mention the vast areas of UGWU activities where I am not involved because it suits his purpose. For example, I am not on the Strategic Plan Committee, our chairman is. I do not represent the union in the GTUC. I am not on the UG Disciplinary Committee, our chairman is. I am not on the Committee on Climate Change, our chairman is. Mr Creighton wants readers to believe that Freddie Kissoon is the UGWU.
Here is the part that Mr Creighton is made to look foolish. He writes; “The statutes specify that the representative should be a non-academic member of the union. It was Mr Kissoon who got the Council to agree to change that so that he, as an academic member could become the representative.” Let me now describe the indecency and dishonesty in that statement. But a moment of hilarity should be noted. At a Council dominated by members of both the PPP and the government, Mr Creighton tells readers that I got the Council to change a statute.
Obviously, Freddie Kissoon has a lot of power and sway over the PPP government as expressed by his influence in the Council of the university. If that was so, I would have long sought to have the Council bring James Rose and Al Creighton before the Disciplinary Committee of the university.
The Statutes of UG prevented an academic from sitting on the Appointments Committee (AC) on discussions on lecturers’ contract renewal. It was an obnoxious violation of industrial relations. It went on for more than 45 years. The union introduced a motion that Council should abolish that anachronism. There was no vote against but one abstention. What it meant was that the union could now choose anyone to represent it in the AC including academics. Prior to that, the union was represented by clerks and secretaries who were afraid to speak. The UGWU met and chose its representative. That person was me.
If as Mr Creighton reported in his letter, Mr Adams was selfless and the most respected UGWU executive on campus, then when that particular statute was abolished why didn’t the UGWU choose Mr Adams? Before I close I would like to inform readers about another major achievement of the UGWU on the Council. The UGWU and the student body got the Council to reverse the dismissal of Dr Desrey Fox whose contract was terminated by Mr Al Creighton when he was acting VC.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon
