HUBERT Nathaniel Critchlow, the late Father of Guyana’s Trade Unionism, who fought the business oligarchs on behalf of the Guyanese working class in the early years of the 20th century, was a dignified person who never allowed   the many battles against his adversaries to change his deportment, or  his daily social interactions with his fellow workers.
In fact, he continued to be respectful, even to  those who sought to undermine his  herculean efforts on behalf of the working class, and   made light of his  leadership capabilities.
To the colony’s leaders of the time, despite their known hostility to his many just demands, he continued his display of civility. Critchlow’s many battles secured victories for the nation’s workers, such as the right to form trade unions, and the eight-hour work  day.
Thus, all those trade unions formed since are owed to the early efforts and sacrifice of this great union leader, who was made a national hero in the mid-1990s. Most importantly, the leaders of those unions since, and even present, are his heirs.      
However,  last Wednesday’s behaviour evinced by veteran trade union leader Norris Witter, who is also head of the umbrella Guyana Trades Union Congress, is not the kind that the late Critchlow would have approved, or of which he would have been  proud. In fact, he must have turned in  his grave!
After all, Prime Minister Sam Hinds  had been fulfilling his duty in keeping with not only protocol, but also in  accordance with a fraternal occasion which is the annual highpoint of acknowledgement of workers. Such a visit, wherever it is made, has always been traditionally welcomed by workers; therefore, to treat the distinguished person of the Honourable Prime Minister in such a shabby and coarse manner, is in totality grossly disrespectful of the High Office, apart from being insultive.
One could have imagined the deep embarrassment that must have engulfed the leaders of the political Opposition, who must have wished that Witter was not a union leader!
They are  certain to condemn Witter’s shocking display. Certainly, the hundreds of workers  gathered for the occasion, would have been  shamed  by such  ugly and disparaging remarks made against the person of the Prime Minister. One hopes that these well-meaning members re-think his position as TUC leader!
Examining Witter’s behaviour holistically, one can understand why the Trade Union Congress is in itself a divided body, and  incapable of providing visionary leadership to the nation’s workers.  
Guyanese must be honest about the  labour  movement in this country, and the long road it has travelled, especially out of the dark night of the Burnham dictatorship.
One stands to be corrected in saying that Mr. Witter may have been at the mid-level of union leadership during those dark days. And from all what he would have witnessed in the then political  administration’s  efforts to subdue the militancy of the labour movement, he would not have dared that kind of disrespect!  But as the saying goes: ‘Monkey does know wha lim fo jump pon!’  
The affiliates of the GTUC must in future know what to do about his continuing at the helm of the umbrella body, for he has brought it into shameful disrepute.
Critchlow would be ashamed of such a conduct.