PLEASE permit me to comment on Freddie Kissoon’s article – Sugar workers need to abandon GAWU (KN 13-04-2010).
He wrote, “GAWU, the sugar union came into being as a legal entity because Mr. Forbes Burnham government recognised it as the true bargaining unit in the sugar industry. This was one of the golden moments of generosity that all Guyanese, particularly sugar workers should not forget.” He then stated, “Burnham knew he was virtually creating a tower of strength against his government. But he went ahead nevertheless.” It is sickening to read a columnist arguing that Burnham created “a tower of strength” because the sugar workers exercised their democratic right to belong to a union of their choice. Imagine what someone like the columnist will do in our country if power resides in himself.
First, GIWU, which later changed its name to GAWU, became a legal entity on April 05, 1948 when it was registered as the 49th Union and not when it won recognition for sugar workers. The union fought for recognition from 1948–1975, it was long and bitter, remember the Enmore Martyrs, then recall the long bitter 28 year struggle for recognition during which Kowsilla was killed for the cause.
Burnham did not give recognition, it was won; the poll was conducted on Old Year’s Day 1975; GAWU received 21,487 votes and the MPCA 376. The Sugar Producers Association was exposed in denying the sugar workers the right for over two decades from being represented by a union of their choice.
In 1953, Burnham as a Minister of the then PPP government supported the Labour Relations Bill that would have made it compulsory for a poll to be held to determine union recognition, he said:
“If we refer to the circumstances we would find that for years the GIWU has been knocking at the door of the Sugar Producers Association – for years they were asking that a ballot be taken to decide which union has the confidence of the majority of the workers in the industry. This important democratic right to which some honourable members so frequently referred to was not extended to the union in spite of all the years of agitation and in spite of all the confidence imposed on it by the workers.”
The Bill lapsed when the Constitution was suspended.
In 1963 when a similar Bill was introduced in Parliament, Burnham opposed it. He said that the Bill was not the causa belli but the casus belli – not the cause, but the occasion for the rebellion.
Burnham, as head of government from 1964 did not order a poll although polls were conducted in other industries to determine union recognition.
The 1975 poll was ordered by the Honourable Winslow Carrington, Minister of Labour after prolonged strikes in both the first and second crops of 1975.
Mr. Kissoon should analyse why Mr. Carrignton was removed as Minister of Labour and from the Cabinet shortly after the poll was ordered and held.
Mr. Burnham was never ‘generous’.
Relative to the GAWU Labour College, the cost announced at the opening was $110M not $150M stated by Mr. Kissoon. And GAWU was never on GUYSUCO’s Board. We know your technique is to draw people into debate but this is merely to highlight your factual distortions and downright public mischief.
What Kissoon should have done is congratulate GAWU for putting the workers money to good use or is it that Kissoon, a University lecturer, thinks that sugar workers are not good enough to be educated. Surely, the money was not used for political purpose as insinuated by Kissoon.
He should give kudos to the union for accounting for workers’dues and having its accounts audited unlike the majority of unions which have not been auditing their books. I pose the same questions the RUSAL workers asked their union.
Can Mr. Kissoon say when last his union, the University of Guyana Workers Union, had its books audited? When last was its annual returns submitted to the Registrar of Trade Unions and when last the union had a delegates’ conference?
I trust that Kissoon will not react, like Mr. Gonsalves and attack the writer, instead of answering the questions.