Youth and women’s representatives yesterday blasted union leaders for not giving them opportunities at the leadership level and called for their inclusion and for succession planning.
During a historic Labour Day rally that saw the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) and the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG) rallying together for the first time in 28 years, the unions’ leadership were called out for not providing opportunities for youths and women in the upper ranks.
Speaking on behalf of the youth, Collis Nicholson from the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU), bashed the trade unions for neglecting the youths. “I am apprehensive about the state of affairs of our respective trade unions,” he said, while pointing out that young leaders are not given opportunities to be involved with the day-to-day operations of their unions.
“Leaders are born while some are created – this fortifies my point of active training programmes and collective bargaining negotiations and communication that will aid in our development as dynamic and ethnical trade unionists,” he argued.
Nicholson said the leaders they are told to emulate, refuse to guide them and leave them to fend on their own. According to him, when desirable behaviours are learnt and practised, they are chastised by their leaders and are deemed “disrespectful” for correcting their wrongdoings. “The time has come in this liberal state for us to inculcate acceptable behaviours and to understand that capacity building is pivotal and crucial to a growing trade union membership,” he asserted. He questioned whether professionalism had even crossed the paths of the leaders or whether it was erased from the trade union.
Nicholson highlighted that the idea was not to tear down the leaders but said succession planning in the unions has died a dreadful death at a tender age as the leaders believe or have a firm belief that knowledge gained is not to share but rather to die with them.
“How can we have positive personnel in our unions and how can any union function if they are not given the competency. The leaders believe that after them is nothing but after this is progress which will resemble one of the many pillars (trade unionist Hubert Nathaniel) Critchlow left to us,” he added, highlighting that such can only be achieved if young leaders are part of the planning.
Women’s representative Karen Van Sluytman-Corbin, echoed some of Nicholson’s sentiments. She said the Women’s Advisory Committee wants to know whether the leaders believe that the achievement of unity lies solely on the shoulder of the workers.
“We want to know if our trade union leaders doesn’t see it essential and necessary for them to also shoulder a major part of the responsibility to ensure that this unity is achieved so that we can be in a stronger position to represent the rights of the working class and to work in collaboration with other stakeholders to tackle the many social ills affecting our women workers,” she stated.
Van Sluytman-Corbin highlighted that the leaders should know that it is time for them to change, especially some of the veterans who still have the conception that only antagonistic and confrontational ways can resolve issues. She castigated “some of those veterans who feel that they hold a lease to our unions for their own self entrenchment rather to look into the interest of the workers.”
Van Sluytman-Corbin argued that issues that affect the GTUC are the same issues that affect FITUG members and the issues that will affect the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) women will also affect the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) women and, as such, it is necessary for them to put away their “immature and selfish” behaviour and band together to deal with the workers’ interests.
“The woman worker represented by GPSU faces sexual harassment in the workplace just the same as the woman worker represented by GAWU,” she declared.
In a reference to last year’s general elections, Van Sluytman-Corbin said even though they went out and exercised their power and got change, at one end of the spectrum some things have changed while at the other end, there are still many issues that women workers are facing. She applauded the Ministry of Social Protection and non-governmental organisations on their efforts to tackle the issue of domestic violence but said that the breakdown in the society is such that it has risen to alarming proportions as women are being killed regularly.
