THE President of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG), Carvil Duncan, yesterday made it clear that trade union movements are no “one-man” show and flayed General-Secretary of the Guyana Trade Union Congress (GTUC), Lincoln Lewis, for not acting in the interests of the workers.

He also called on Lewis to name the four GTUC representatives to hold positions on the Board of the Critchlow Labour College (CLC).
He was speaking at FITUG’s annual May Day rally, at the National Park, Georgetown.
The National Assembly has unanimously approved a motion that the Government’s annual subvention to the Critchlow Labour College, withheld since 2007, be restored. The motion was passed in late February this year, after the mover, Alliance For Change MP, Trevor Williams, had made an amendment that was acceptable to both sides of the House.
The original motion had merely called for the Government to restore the subvention, but the amendment was introduced and included a precondition that the labour component of the Board of Directors of the CLC must include four representatives of the FITUG, placing representatives of FITUG on the Board of the CLC for the first time, and four representatives from GTUC.
It was this amendment which secured the approval of the Government Members of Parliament.
According to the FITUG President, his Union is ready to name its four representatives.
Duncan stressed that the bottom line of the issue at hand is the availability of opportunities to the children of workers who need it.
“I am putting Lincoln Lewis on notice,” he said, adding that where the functioning of trade unions is based on the decisions of one person, that person must be voted out of the leadership post.

REJECTED
However, Lewis, within 24 hours of the restoration of the subvention, rejected the National Assembly’s unanimously approved motion for broader trade union representation on the Board of the Critchlow Labour College (CLC) in return for the restoration of the badly needed state subvention.
He said, “For the National Assembly to arbitrarily take a decision to impose a new management structure on the college is a usurpation of the by-laws of these institutions, and a matter no law-abiding citizen should countenance, much less be voting on in the National Assembly.”
Following his statements, former Labour Minister and Member of Parliament (MP), Manzoor Nadir spoke out against criticisms levelled at the unanimous vote by the MPs to restore the subvention.
He noted that for the past six years there have been calls from many quarters, especially the political opposition and anti-government public figures, to restore the subvention, which the Government had suspended, citing that there must be accountability and democratic governance within the Critchlow Labour College.
He said, “The rejection by the GTUC of the National Assembly’s unanimous motion is a clear indication that all the hullabaloo they made about the restoration of the subvention had nothing to do with money and the students, but was merely about politics.
“The GTUC leadership has stood steadfast that it would prefer to “rule over ruin”, a sick philosophy of many in the People’s National Congress, rather than come to a consensus that would be in the interest of all stakeholders of the college, and the national labour movement as a whole.”
He made it clear that the National Assembly’s vote ensured that the “collective voice” of the organised labour movement is represented on the Board of the CLC.
The former Labour Minister said, “The swift and complete rejection by the GTUC is not only a slap in the face of the Alliance For Change, which brought the motion and the amendment, but it also reflects on the labour aristocracy which has hijacked the CLC.
“A dictatorship that is not intent on managing the CLC for the development of our youth and the unity of the labour movement, but to achieve the objective of making the PPP/C government look bad. It is this dictatorship that is hurting the Critchlow Labour College and preventing the unification of the labour movement.”
Current Labour Minister Dr. Nanda Gopual, in his contribution to the 2014 Budget debates, had stated that it is “inconceivable that one of the smallest unions” in the country, with under 200 members out of an organised labour population of 50,000, could hold the presidency and general secretary positions of the GTUC for so long.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO), in all of its conventions and policy statements, speaks to the State and stakeholders consulting with the ‘the most representative organisations of labour’. The GTUC and the composition of the Board of the CLC does not pass this requirement of the ILO.

(By Vanessa Narine)