Dinosaur Trade Unions

Dec 19, 2010 Editorial

The news that GuySuCo has threatened to derecognize GAWU, as had RUSAL’s Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI) done earlier to the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU) illustrate the changing labour landscape of Guyana.
Before the advent of universal suffrage in the 1953 elections, trade unions were the major vehicles to agitate for better working conditions for workers – which covered practically all the local populace.
Politicians, such as Dr Cheddi Jagan and Mr. Forbes Burnham, who emerged from that milieu, never severed their ties to the trade union movement and in fact became titular heads of prominent unions even as they entered government and opposition in the political arena.
And herein lay the first seeds of the trade union eventual ineffectualness. The politicians saw, and used, the unions as a means for achieving political power. The theory was that once power was achieved, the unions interests would be easier to address. This theory foundered because of two contradictions – power, once achieved developed its own dynamics and it was always possible that the overall interest of the country may not be exactly coincident with the desires of labour.
The increasing politicization of all sectors of our society in the seventies meant that the trade union movement became one of the most polarized institutions and this schism has meandered down to the present imbroglio between the TUC and FITUG. But in focusing on their internecine battles the trade union movement may be missing some larger, external challenges.
Fundamentally, unions will have to appreciate that the old tactic of only fighting employers for pay increases has proven, and will continue to prove, to be pyrrhic victories in those instances where they are successful. As we have witnessed in Guyana, what is the point of struggling for the annual pay increases only to see them eaten up by inflation? What is the point of “winning” increases only to have workers laid off because the company has to maintain its overall competitiveness in costs?
Securing pay increase without a commensurate rise in productivity is self-defeating but unfortunately, our unions are still locked in the old colonial mode of opposing policies that lead to productivity increases.
The trade union movement has not evolved to deal with the new globalised world. For instance, while the owners of capital have accepted that the discipline of free competition will improve their performance, most of our trade unions do not accept competition from other unions to represent workers and their umbrella organizations are basically cartels that would have been illegal if formed by businesses.
These cartels protect outdated and irrelevant practices and unions and as a result the entire movement suffers. In 2000, for instance, when the GAWU faced a very formidable challenge from the new GSWU in the sugar industry, the rest of the TUC not only stood aside but also allowed the powers-that-be to raise red herrings that effectively stymied the challenge.
Trade unions have thus stuck to strategies that are ineffective: demanding wage increases without tying them to productivity increases and so demanding something for nothing; not modernizing their approach to accept competition in their arena and thirdly and most fundamentally forgetting their roots which was to basically serve the poor.
The “capitalists”, in the meanwhile are all “free-marketers” and many of the ones who are opening cutting edge industries are adopting working friendly practices that obviate the need for trade union activity.
Overall, trade unions have suffered three losses: the loss of the moral high ground to social activists due to neglect of the poor; the loss of the political high ground due to shrinkage in membership, and finally, the loss of the intellectual high ground to capitalists due to outmoded strategies.
Trade unions have several options but the most viable one here would be to promote greater productivity. They should embrace newer practices and technological advances, and deal positively with any ensuing redundancies through job-retraining etc.
Unfortunately our trade unions have not shown themselves to be very creative – they are adept at identifying or even creating problems. They are ensuring that they have become an endangered species.