Witter describes new bill as another step towards dictatorship

May 11, 2009 News

General Secretary (ag) of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), Norris Witter, says that at the appropriate time the union will ensure that the Public Utility Undertakings and Public Health Services Arbitration Bill (Amendment) Bill 2009, which was passed in the National Assembly on Thursday, is repealed.
According to Witter, the GTUC saw the passage of that Bill as the first step of the entrenchment of a dictatorship that is intended to repress and oppress workers through anti-labour legislation.
“This is just the beginning,” Witter lamented.
He said that the passage of the Public Utility Undertakings and Public Health Services Arbitration Bill (Amendment) Bill 2009 confirms the prediction of the GTUC that the passage of the Trade Union Recognition and Certification Amendment Bill in January 2009 was the precursor to a long line of anti-labour legislations that will rebound to the curtailing of workers rights such as the right to strike as enshrined in Article 147 of the Guyana Constitution.
Witter stated that the erosion of workers’ rights would continue unabated until the people are prepared to participate in extra parliamentary activities.
He also said that the fact that there were a number of categories of workers who, up to the point in time of the passage of that Bill, did not fall within the ambit of the Public Utility Undertakings and Public Health Services Arbitration Act means that the government, with the passage of that Bill, is extending the Act to cover a wider cross section of the workers.
And, this is curtailing the rights of those workers to take industrial action if and when the need arises.
That apart, he pointed out that the act also provides for excessive fines for persons who fall within that Act.
“When one looks at the level of time then clearly it is intended to intimidate workers from taking industrial action…the Public Utility Undertakings and Public Health Services Arbitration Amendment Bill 2009 is just the beginning of a long line of bills that the government will enact in Parliament not only to restrict workers from taking industrial action whether it is the form of strikes, go slow or sit ins, but also it will roll back or reverse the gains that leaders and workers fought for in the past.”
However, despite all of these concerns, Witter said that the union did not consider it appropriate at this juncture to mount any vigorous protest action to stall the passage of this Bill.
“But one needs not go too far back in history where the current party in government successfully passed a Bill in its Parliament only to subsequently have that Bill repealed by a very vigorous and robust labour movement, not only labour movement, but civil society and we are saying that even though the government may succeed in passing this Bill and it may even be assented to and passed into law, it is not the end of the road.”

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Witter describes new bill as another step towards dictatorship

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