THE Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) has condemned the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) for holding a separate memorial service to commemorate the 168th Anniversary of the Enmore Martys.Speaking at the state-sanctioned event held at the Enmore monument site on Thursday, GTUC General Secretary Lincoln Lewis said such action by the party “is divisive and does not constitute freedom of association.” “It is playing to the gallery of divisive politics at the expense of workers and it must end.”

Lewis said that the workers movement continues to be accused by the political leadership of being divided, but this division is grounded and fueled in political partisanship. “It will remain so as long as politicians continue to use the workers movement for their self-serving interest and workers, their unions and leadership allow the politicians to divert attention from common issues that require unification based on principles,” Lewis charged.

The PPP laid wreaths at the tombs of the martyrs at the Le Repentir Cemetery and later hosted a public meeting. Several of the leaders of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU) were present at the PPP event.

The state of sugar
Meanwhile, addressing the issue of the sugar industry- a topic which the PPP has used to whip up support in the sugar belt, Lewis said the “crisis” in the industry today did not happen overnight. “Let me seek to disabuse any effort to blame it on Forbes Burnham, Cheddi Jagan or Desmond Hoyte. These men are no longer here and have been dead for quite some time now. Those who perceive that these men made mistakes could have corrected and moved to correct them, but they must stop hiding behind dead men.”

Lewis said the industry has been mismanaged by leaders who are alive today. “There has been no sustainable development plan, and GuySuCo board became an institution for political patronage, not the development of policies to safeguard the industry, or ensure continued gainful employment for the workers.”

According to Lewis sugar workers are fully aware of how this industry has been mismanaged under the administrations of Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar. “Sugar workers are concerned that some, if not all, of these tendencies are playing out in the David Granger/Moses Nagamootoo administration. To those quick to seek defence out of sense of political loyalty or cheer because the government is considered an enemy, let it be said that the truth does not lie and if interested in the success of the party supported, it carries a corresponding responsibility not to condone, encourage or turn a blind eye to acts that would compromise the delivery of good governance.”

Lewis reminded the gathering that in 2010 during the Jagdeo presidency when the sugar unions were agitating against the treatment meted out to workers the state-owned GuySuCo threatened to de-recognise GAWU. “Note the similarity – in 1948 the estate management and colonial government refused to conduct a process that would have allowed workers expression of their will to a union of choice, and in 2010 the estate management had the government support to trample on the workers’ expressed will.

“Lewis again said in 2016 sugar still hangs in the balance and taxpayers continue to prop up this industry with billions of dollars, “yet the workers’ representatives are locked out from having input on what will be done to the estates as in the instance of Wales and LBI, with the society being told that the LBI decision was made during the Jagdeo administration, even though it is to be implemented under another government whose parties campaigned against Jagdeo gross mismanagement of the industry.”

According to Lewis in 1948, the estate owners had a company union, claiming to represent workers’ interest, with the complicity of the colonial authority; “today an independent government treats the unions with contempt. The right to collective bargaining and honouring the agreement therein are trampled on. In some ways while the political dynamics and leadership have changed, the contempt for workers and their right to freedom of association and collective bargaining remain the same.”

All workers causes
Lewis said the causes of the sugar workers in 1948 are the causes of the workers everywhere in Guyana today. He noted that the Guyana Public Service Union is on record requesting the government, the employer of public servants, to honour the Collective Labour Agreement and meet with them at the negotiation table, but this continues to fall on deaf ears.

He noted, “This is happening in spite of government repeated commitment to restore collective bargaining; the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union continues to demand that the Government respect the 2002 High Court decision into the matter of the Bauxite Company of Guyana Incorporated, but the contempt for the Judiciary remains evident; unions representing sugar workers have made public complaints of GuySuCo’s refusal to discuss with them proposed plans for the industry, which inevitability will affect workers, and management’s apparent disrespect for existing Collective Labour Agreement; the Guyana Teachers Union’s right to Collective Bargaining is being ignored and statement made that the APNU+AFC administration is not bound to honour Agreements signed with the Government of Guyana during the PPP/C administration.”

Lewis told the gathering that these are issues that bind workers in 2016. “These issues speak to common interests, which are the right to freedom of association, respect for collective bargaining and desire for improving working condition. These issues cut across sections, ethnicity and political association. They border on international conventions and charters, universal declarations, the Guyana Constitution, and time-honoured principles.”

He said today while the assaults are directed at sugar and bauxite workers, public sector workers and the teachers, “if there continues to be silence in what is evidently an attack on the Labour Movement, it is only a matter of time before all workers – union and non-unionised – are treated in similar manner.”

Lewis said contempt for workers in 1948 is no different to contempt for workers in the 21st century, regardless of whether such takes place under Jagdeo, Ramotar or Granger/Nagamootoo leadership. “Right is right and wrong is wrong.”

ILO confab
Touching on the vexed issue of the International Labour Organisation conference, Lewis said labour continues to be disappointed in this administration’s treatment of workers and low priority placement on its agenda.

“The failure for two consecutive years not to attend the important ILO Annual Conference on the pretext of absence of funding when funding seems to be available for excursions is testimony of how labour is seen.”

He said when for the first time in this nation’s history there is no Labour Ministry or Minister of Labour it gives rise to serious concerns.

“Social Protection is one of the four strategic objectives in the ILO Decent Work Agenda. Labour cuts across wide ranging issues that attend to workers’ socio-economic, cultural and political well-being. In that the Labour landscape in 2016 share similarities to that of 1948 which led and sustained the sugar workers struggle, this does not constitute progress 68 years after, and all should be concerned… very, very, concerned,” the union leader asserted.