HE HAD it coming for a long time. Now, finally, it has happened with the open challenge by President of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions (FITUG) Carville Duncan, against the harmful political meanderings of the GTUC’s General Secretary, Lincoln Lewis.Duncan, who also heads the Guyana Labour Union, of which the indomitable national hero, Hubert Nathaniel Crichlow was founder-president, chose the occasion of last Thursday’s “Labour Day’ to challenge Lewis to engage with FITUG to resolve the old divisive issue over the government’s annual subvention to the Crichlow Labour College (CLC). Suspension of the subvention had resulted in persistent financial problems for the Labour College.
However, even after a decision was taken to resume the subsidy with a view to including also FITUG in the decision, along with the GTUC, there came the quite strange and unprecedented development of a unilateral action taken by someone in authority to send back the entire subsidy package WITHOUT ANY prior consultation with those in the GTUC who are entitled to be involved.
The crux of the problem is that this unilateral decision, which would have been embarrassing not only for the executive decision-makers of the Crichlow Lablour College, or the GTUC in general, but also for the parliamentarians of the National Assembly who had approved the release of the subvention.
The inconvenient truth is that someone, bent on misusing his authority, chose to unilaterally determine for the approved subvention to be rudely sent back and leave the Labour College to continue struggling with its operational problems while, at the wider national level, perpetuating divisions between the GTUC and FITUG—a problem that’s neither in the interest of organised labour nor the country in general.
Mr. Duncan was quite clear in his disclosure at the Labour Day rally that the finger pointed to the GTUC’s Mr. Lewis for that provocative unilateral decision to “send back the subvention where it came from …”
The FITUG leader went on to make an open invitation to Mr. Lewis for civilised dialogue between GTUC and FITUG to overcome prevailing divisions in the interest of the labour movement and proper functioning of the Labour College.
Those who are familiar with Lewis’ trademark hostility towards PPP-led administrations as a very divisive activist of the PNC may not hold out much hope for a positive response from him to the FITUG President’s call for dialogue to overcome divisions and, more immediately, ensure availability of and accountability for the approved subvention for the Crichlow Labour College.
We would like to be surprised by Lincoln Lewis and his small group of dissenters. Ultimately, the leaders of unions comprising what remains of a once broad-based united GTUC must stand up and be counted for the immediate resolution of availability of the subvention for the Labour College and then move towards the wider and most desirable challenge for dialogue on labour movement unity as commendably called for by FITUG’s Carville Duncan.