REFLECTING on GAWU’s 20th Delegates’ Congress, let us remember that the CCWU was one of the unions which gave solidarity with the sugar union GAWU when the PNC government planned a shutdown of the industry permanently, while persuading the workers to return to work.

We all know some trade union leaders are a pack of jokers. All they could do is sell their members out quicker than members can sell themselves out.
Some trade union leaders go to meetings just to make them  talk shops. Industrial action is about genuine issues affecting workers. Gordon Todd and Dr. Cheddi Jagan were truly good friends. Remember when CCWU called the strike at Guyana Stores in Water Street in 1979 and 82 of our members were knocked off, then again in 1989 when 300 were dismissed for participating in solidarity strikes.
The experience the union has had with JP Knights and Viceroy Shipping was nothing new in the experience of the CCWU. It was all part of a calculated attempt by the authorities to just frustrate the CCWU.
In the General-Secretary’s report at the 1992 CCWU Annual Delegates’ Conference, the report highlighted  the failure of the Ministry of Labour to prosecute our union’s claims to over 12 recognition requests over the last 10 years of that period. J.P. Knights and Viceroy Shipping form part of that trend whereby the Ministry of Labour continues to fail the CCWU.
Take the application for recognition at the Kent Shirt Factory. The union had called a strike there over the issue of recognition, signed terms of resumption and the Ministry of Labour undertook to conduct a survey. That never materialised. The union was left unsupported at Sampson’s Enterprises, Squirrel Manufacturing Company, C.R. Jacob, the Cinema Proprietors, to name a few.
The CCWU’s most trying experience was the strike of 300 days for recognition at the National Restaurant. For 300 days we fought for those workers. The owners were granted an injunction restraining us from picketing in front of the restaurant and their home. Those 15 workers were permanently locked out.
The case of J.P. Knights is a palpable demonstration of the failure of the Ministry of Labour to persuade or compel foreign employers to respect our sovereignty and the right of our workers to be represented by unions. It was the union’s view that the government would have exerted its authority to bring those foreigners to book, but that was not the case in the past. Instead, the workers were abandoned to their fate and to the whims of those employers.
The CCWU applied to J.P. Knights for recognition. They sent representatives to meet the union at our headquarters to determine our bona fides to represent workers in that category. The union provided evidence that satisfied them, and then nothing has ever happened. The Ministry of Labour was approached.
Then a worker on one of J.P. Knights’s vessels was injured out in the Atlantic. The company had no provision for first-aid, any communication or emergency transport back to Georgetown. Two other workers hailed a passing boat and brought him to Georgetown for treatment. And do you know what the reaction of the company was? They fired the injured worker and the two others who had helped him. The union brought out the workers on strike. For 49 days the union held out. Then the union suspended the strike.
The union met the then Minister of Labour. The Ministry of Labour said they had met the J.P. Knights people, but what we knew is that J.P. Knights flatly refused to respond to the Ministry of Labour’s letter for a meeting at the Ministry. In fact, one of our members had to accompany the Ministry of Labour official who took the letter to J.P. Knights’s Officer, who refused to accept it. It had to be thrown into the yard even though the official from the Ministry of Labour had identified himself. It was a clear case of a foreigner showing gross disrespect for a Guyanese institution, Guyanese workers and the government appearing powerless to do anything about it.
Now take Viceroy Shipping, another expatriate company. The CCWU had to call a strike for recognition, and signed terms of resumption. Then they refused to take the workers back, claiming there was no work available. What they really did was to employ others, thus denying the union recognition.
Let me return to share another experience of victimisation, this time by a local company – Muneshwer’s Ltd that bought  over the Guyana National Trading Corporation (GNTC) as part of the PNC government’s divestment programme. The CCWU had recognition at that workplace in the Sandbach Parker and Jessel days as the CCWU had under GNTC.
This is how a private Guyanese employer who bought over these companies has refused to recognise the CCWU or any other union. They called meetings of the workers, hurled all sorts of threats and abuse at them and threatened those who were CCWU members with dismissal. They are clearly anti-union and nothing was done about it. Here the CCWU has gone the complete circle, public to private, then back to ownership. Recently,there was the Guyana Pegasus hotel using anti-union tactics by de-recognising the CCWU.
It was  asked, what sin did the CCWU commit. We have rights, the sin of militancy, of being a champion for the workers, of remaining free of all political affiliation, of all those who trample on the workers’ rights. Our ideology is rooted in the workers’ aspirations and desires. Our approach to politics is well defined. We have a deep and abiding interest in political issues and policies that seek to share national life and affect workers, but not in partisan political squabbles. Our only permanent interest is the welfare of the workers and any move by anyone that adversely affects that interest has to be opposed.
To GAWU, the challenges to build a new model of development that is truly sustainable might be expressed through some premises: how to reorientate a national economy towards the highest common good of humanity, including in it the development of each human being,and not forgetting future generations?
To GAWU, a truly sustainable development is that committed to eradication of poverty and distribution of wealth.
To GAWU, a truly sustainable development is that committed to food sovereignty. The control of few corporations over the world’s agriculture and food system, of genetic resources to supermarket chains, leads us to food vulnerability. The challenge of a country does not lie only upon its food sovereignty, because the abundance of food nationally produced does not guarantee its access to those that do have incomes. That is why we hereby defend the concept of “food sovereignty”, conceived as family farming that requests autonomy for communities through the right to decide what to plant, how to produce, what and how to consume”.
To GAWU, a truly sustainable development is one that proposes that science should be aimed mainly to stimulate the social development, using these new technological patterns in the interest of society, the environment and the planet, not in the interest of capital.
To GAWU, a truly sustainable development is one that is committed to a quality education to everyone. We are concerned about education under the aegis of a ruling class. An education that aims to supply students, turning them into passive students and keeping the social structure that the elite requires, contrary to what is believed to be the sense of educating a free and conscious citizen. That is why we are against the privatisation and commercialisation of everything that is educational, a higher education must be defined as a vital resource for the civic and democratic life of a nation. We must fight to potentialise education as a true tool of democracy and equality for the future.
To GAWU, a truly sustainable development is one that is committed to increasing the supply of electric energy: clean, renewable and competitive.  We need to defend the use of new technologies. Solar, wind, wave, tide energy are projects that should be priorities in our country, the advantages are huge.
To GAWU, a truly sustainable development is one that is committed to the recognition of the access to water as a human right and declared by our country as a common good.
To GAWU, a truly sustainable development is one that is committed to the creation of green jobs- as jobs and activities that substantially contribute to preserve or restore the environmental quality, as jobs that reduce the consumption of energy, materials and water through high-efficiency strategies – and decent work.
To GAWU, a truly sustainable development is one that is committed to the promotion of a high level of social protection for everyone. It means guaranteeing the commitment of the government to provide social protection to all workers and ensuring that workers and their families are protected from multiple crises, either economic or related to the environment.
GAWU defends the creation of a Green Fund: it’s about an input of money to finance development and the fight against climate change, besides contributing to the reform of the financial system that was the main cause of the entire financial crisis around world.
GAWU defends a new economy, an economy of care, an economy guided to decently satisfy the needs of human beings respecting the natural systems of life and of the planet.