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It’s time members take back their unions 

Apr 27, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
On May 1st 1886, the demonstration of thousands of workers in Chicago who had staged a strike for improving working conditions and their lives was fired at by the police and a number of workers were killed.
Nevertheless the workers persisted and continued their struggle and managed to gain most of their demands regarding working condition regulations and reduction of daily working hours from 10 hours per day to eight hours.
Workers attending the Labour Day rallies are calling for a single trade union umbrella body voice to represent them on issues of common concern.
So, make no mistake, when employers violate workers’ rights to organise and bargain collectively they’re not just holding workers back economically, they’re chipping away at democratic rights that are essential to the economic of our society.
It’s no coincidence that social and economic fairness in Guyana expanded dramatically during and after their rapid growth of union membership in the 1960s and 1970s – or that inequality has worsened in our country over the last two decades as the proportion of workers represented by unions has declined. That’s why I get mad as hell when some trade union leaders who claim to care about workers and democratic values while promoting deals and other policies that undermine workers’ rights and living standards – and concentrate more and more economic and political power into the hands of fewer and fewer people. But getting mad as hell won’t change things; only our collective action will.
This Labour Day let’s make a commitment to ourselves, our families, and communities to stay in the forefront of public efforts and campaigns to keep and expand workers rights and progressive policies that help all workers in Guyana build brighter futures through their own active participation in making the decisions that affect their lives.
The time has come for members to take back their unions from leaders if they are not acting in the best interest of their members. We have power to remove them from office and elect new leaders.
The time is now right. This labour Day, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of rebuilding the trade union movement. Workers can only judge trade union leaders on what they can build, not what they want to destroy.
I wish to underscore this point by reminding workers that this Labour Day creates bitterness despair, and loss of confidence. All designed to break the spirit of workers’ solidarity.
Sherwood Clarke

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