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PNCR SALUTES GUYANA WORKERS ON MAY DAY

May 02, 2010 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

… as PPP assault on the trade unions continue

The PNCR extends to the workers of Guyana and their trade unions, greetings of solidarity on their day, May Day 2010.

For yet another year, Guyanese workers commemorate May Day in an environment of extreme hostility engendered by the PPP/C Government, towards their livelihood.

There is a continuing and concerted effort to roll back the gains achieved since the pioneering and foundational efforts of Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow and other stalwarts who made major personal sacrifices for the achievements of many of the workers rights that are now under attack.

Some anti-working class elements are peddling the idea that trade unions have outlived their usefulness, and that those benefits, which Critchlow fought for, such as a living wage, better conditions of work, and an eight-hour work day, can be better provided for by employers, such as the Government, themselves.

Moreover the PPP/C Government is hell bent on maintaining the division of the workers representatives, the trade union movement, by its relentless attacks on the Guyana Trades Union Congress (G.T.U.C), while favouring the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (F.I.T.U.G.), which it considers as fellow collaborators.

On this May Day, our Guyanese workers still remain terribly underpaid and most are living on the breadline.

The arbitrarily imposed salary increases have been below the rate of inflation. Some workers still get little or no allowances and many operate in an environment of poor occupational health and safety standards.

The Minister of Labour stands idly by and refuses to employ his enormous statutory powers under the law to resolve trade/industrial disputes.

The Minister has evinced a callous disregard for the plight of the Bauxite Workers at the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI), (which is jointly owned by RUSAL and the Government), whose employers, are being allowed by this PPP/C Government to ride roughshod over the workers and the laws of Guyana.

On this May Day Workers education is still reeling under the massive blow dealt it, when the PPP/C Government removed the annual Parliamentary approved subvention for the Critchlow Labour College .

Guyana’s public servants continue to be under the hammer of their employer, the PPP/C Government, which continues to negate the Agency Shop Agreement with the Guyana Public Service Union (G.P.S.U), and callously commits many breaches of the Collective Labour Agreement with the union, such as the deliberate breaking off of annual salaries negotiations, to impose its own arbitrarily determined paltry increases.

The PNCR wishes to exhort workers to be steadfast against this onslaught, and to appreciate that there is strength in Worker’s unity. It is only a united trade union movement that can withstand the attacks against workers which undermine their welfare and standard of living.

The PNCR stands ever ready in solidarity to support the workers of Guyana , and their trade unions.

LONG LIVE THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT! SOLIDARITY FOREVER

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