Two days ago on May 1, Labour Day was celebrated as a national holiday. It is customary for this column to notice commemorative holidays before they occur but we would have had to carry this article almost a week before Labour Day so we, therefore, decided to publish after the event when the holiday was still fresh in the public’s memory.

May 1 was long celebrated in Guyana as a holiday under the name of May Day, a tradition we had inherited from England. It was a day when there were fairs everywhere, catering especially for children and there were accordingly many children’s games like climbing the greasy pole or various types of races such as bag races. The centrepiece of such events was the plaiting of the maypole and the choice and crowning of the May Queen.

Labour Day replacing May Day on the Guyanese holiday calendar, is associated with Trade Unions and Unionism. Though the first Trade Union in Guyana was founded by Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow just after World War I and though the Movement made some impact in the 1920s and 1930s especially among the stevedores and in the sugar estates, it blossomed forth after World War II when many more Unions were founded to represent various trades. In these years, also, modern political parties began to be established and since Britain had decided to withdraw from its West Indian colonies, these political parties thought of themselves as succeeding the colonial power.

These political parties thought they could strengthen themselves by co-opting the Unions and they successfully did so to the extent where labour concerns in the unions very often became subordinated to political concerns. In all strikes and labour protests against the employers, the State generally took the side of the employers and this was clearly seen in the sugar strikes in the 1940s and 1950s and these worker struggles in the Sugar Industry form an epic chapter in the Trade Union history of Guyana.

Though the worker struggles for better wages and working conditions have essentially the same characteristics in all countries, each country has its own peculiar manifestation of such struggles: Western Europe and the United States experienced their Industrial Revolutions in the 19th Century. Industrial production was done by the factory system which employed large conglomerates of workers who mostly left their homes in the countryside to find employment in the fast-growing industrial towns.

These hundreds of thousands of workers were cruelly exploited by the employers and their conditions were recorded in many writings such as Charles Dickens’ novels. Many thinkers or philosophers, especially in France and England, began to work out ways in which they thought this exploitation of the workers could be ended and among the most prominent was Karl Marx. Most of these philosophers thought that change could come about only by violent revolution while a small minority felt that the same goals could be achieved by more peaceful means.

Britain adopted the more gradualist and peaceful means of change, later known as Fabian Socialism.
This implied gradual political change by widening the franchise and by permitting the establishment of trade unions and the strengthening of the Trade Union laws giving greater protection to the workers.

Guyana, being a British colony, adopted British Labour Laws from the beginning of the 20th Century and such Laws gave the Unions much protection. Labour was given national recognition and May Day became Labour Day.

May Day celebrations however still continued for some years together with Labour Day parades and the Thomas Lands YMCA May Day fairs which elected the May Queen was the centre of May Day celebrations in Georgetown,
Of recent years, many of the former traditions of Labour Day have been neglected and need to be resuscitated so as to again give the occasion the richness and public appeal it once had:

The speeches of Union leaders should once again adumbrate policy outlines for the Government; workers’ songs such as the Internationale and Solidarity for Ever should again be heard; the marches should be accompanied by bands and be disciplined; the spirit of solidarity which transcended political affiliations and was almost Masonic should be revived; and at every year’s celebrations, the stories of the great Guyanese Union leaders should be remembered. Though the parades could not have taken place this year owing to the Covid19 pandemic requirements, union leaders have now been presented with an opportunity to prepare for a memorable May Day 2021.