By Moses Nagamootoo
(Below is part of Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo’s speech delivered on Labour Day 2016 at the National Park)
TODAY, May Day 2016, brings back the famous words of Martin Luther King: “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Fifty years ago, Forbes Burnham and Cheddi Jagan, two irreplaceable national leaders, embraced as we welcomed independence as a sovereign nation. That embrace had symbolised national unity. It was short-lived.
Today, 50 years later, when we are observing our Golden Jubilee as an independent state, the two factions of the labour movement – GTUC and FITUG – embraced. Today is a celebration of working class, ethnic and national unity, even symbolically so. Let us hope that this is the first giant step towards the reunification of the working class movement in Guyana.
Last year, on this day, when David Granger and I joined the march, it ended up at two separate venues. It was our version of labour apartheid. Today, there is apparent reconciliation. There still remain two factions, but one march. Let the healing begin, not only among our trade unions, but among our people, especially our working people.
HOMECOMING
For me, this is homecoming today. I have always considered myself as a labour man. The labour movement has been my political incubator. The red flag, for me, remains the symbol of struggle and the banner of our Guyana revolution. As a politician and journalist, I have come to know, over a period of 40 years, some of the finest trade unionists — like Joseph Pollydore, Ashton Chase, Harrylall, Boysie Ramkarran, Bertis Bangaree, Gordon Todd, George Daniels, N.K. Gopaul, Komal Chand, Norris Witter,
Patrick Yarde, Lincoln Lewis and many others. They have invariably stood at the cutting edge of struggles, and at times (were) viewed as “enemies of the state” due to an authoritarian political impulse that had intruded into the labour arena.
Today we must leave that past behind us. I can assure you that you have friends in Government; you are our allies and partners. Labour forms an important part in our model of industrial, trade union and participatory democracy.
Just as I had done throughout my career, I came to Government with a genuine commitment to labour. In the 2015 Coalition Manifesto, I said this: “The success of our plans depends on genuine partnership between state and investors and with trade unions and workers. There must be a new day for both business and labour”. Page 7.
MANIFESTO PLEDGES
Our Manifesto pledged (page 25):
1. Restoration of collective bargaining throughout the Public Service. Collective bargaining has been slaughtered in Guyana some 20 years ago.
2. End fragmentation and restore solidarity and dignity to the labour movement
3. Restore the check-off system for automatic deduction of union dues
4. Ensure that Guyanese are employed at all projects
5. Provide subventions to all legally constituted and functioning trade unions.
6. Restore the Government subvention to Critchlow Labour College, to ensure that there is reproduction of union leadership through training, and that the children of workers secure an education.
7. Reform and modernise Public Service
8. Establish a salaries review commission
SALARIES
On the latter, I wish to say this:
We are committed to pay salary increase for 2016 after submission of the CoI Report. It is this Government that has decided to reform the Public Service, and part of this reformation is not only a training college for you, but to have a commission to evaluate what you do and have stratification of job responsibilities and assignments, so that you can be compensated in accordance with your work.
Instead of one-off, we would wish a long-range arrangement that goes beyond wages and salaries. We want a return to merit increments. We must reward hard work and honesty. We must professionalise the public service and restore respect and commitment to duty.
NEW ARRANGEMENT
Much has been said, as if this Government, which is a partner of labour, has been sitting on its hands in these last 12 months. But I want to let you know that the contours of this new arrangement I talked about have been emerging:-
(A)We paid a small, modest, wage increase, then topped it up with a $5,000 incentive
(B)We increased the minimum wage to $50,000.
(C)We raised income tax threshold from $600,000 to $660,000. This benefits 68,000 workers.
(D)We raised old age pensions, and increased the number of these pensioners by 18%
(E)We zero-rated more basic, essential items free from VAT, amounting to over $180 million
(F)We reduced the price of gas and diesel at the pump
(G)We reduced the residential and commercial GPL energy charges
(H)We resumed transfer of subsidies to sugar workers. A tranch of $3 billion was made this year. Whilst we were in the Opposition, we voted, as bailouts for the sugar industry, some $17 billion of taxpayers’ money. Those who say they love the workers did not say that they spent $47 billion to repair a sugar factory – Skeldon — that became a white elephant; that they placed the industry in $82 billion debt.
(I)Of course I didn’t agree with how the announcement of the closure of the Wales factory was done. I think it was a public relations disaster. And I had asked the Agriculture Minister and GuySuCo to meet the workers, talk with the workers, explain to the workers what to expect. I could not bludgeon GuySuCo’s Board, because they would say “Nagamootoo politically interfering”.
This year, the coalition set aside $43.8 billion for wages and salaries, as employment costs; and an additional $6.6 billion for benefits and allowances. The state carries employment costs of $50.4 billion for workers. Any increase has to await the report of the Commission and negotiations, to ensure that we follow procedures and best practices as regards the relations between Government and trade unions, and allow the process of collective bargaining to take its course.
LABOUR OR SOCIAL PROTECTION
For us, labour is much more than fighting for wages and salaries. We are concerned about the social protection of workers. The Ministry of Social Protection must not only be concerned with labour issues, but the all-round protection of our workers. It must look into housing for workers, environmental safety, sexual harassment at places of work, child labour, trafficking and prostitution of our women, gender equity and domestic violence, and family planning.
The State must protect workers not only as workers, but as citizens. We rightly have a Ministry of Social Protection, and I applaud Minister Lawrence for carrying the burden of ensuring that we have not only to deal with wages, but the social problems of our working people.
We need the general approach; we must not take the tree for the forest.
Yes, we have our troubles, but we must have fresh hope. Like the phoenix, we can rise from the ashes; we can be great again. We can, if we work together. We are becoming clean again. Our ‘Garden City’ will blossom again. Our towns and villages will live again!
