The TUC dictatorship is ruining Critchlow Labour College

Mar 09, 2014 Features / Columnists, PPP Column

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The People’s Progressive Party is aghast that Mr. Lincoln Lewis, on behalf of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), so swiftly (within twenty-four hours) denounced the National Assembly which unanimously voted to restore the subvention to the Critchlow Labour College, once the TUC amended the labour component on its Board to have an equal number of representatives from the two umbrella labour organizations, the FITUG (Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana) and the GTUC.
For the past six years there have been calls from many quarters, especially the political opposition and anti-government public figures, to restore the subvention which the government had suspended, citing that there must be accountability and democratic governance within the Critchlow Labour College.  The rejection by the TUC of the National Assembly’s unanimous motion is a clear indication that all the hullabaloo they made about the restoration of the subvention, had nothing to do about money and the students, but was merely about politics.
The TUC leadership has stood steadfast that it would prefer to “rule over ruin” – a sick philosophy of many in the People’s National Congress – rather than come to a consensus that would be in the interest of all stakeholders of the college and the national labour movement as a whole.
Recently in the National Assembly there was that consensus, every one of the Members of Parliament, registered their vote for reform in the governance of the Critchlow Labour College, by ensuring that the collective voice of the organized labour movement is represented on the Board of the CLC.
The swift and complete rejection by the TUC is not only a slap in the face of the Alliance for Change which brought the motion and the amendment, but it also reflects on the labour aristocracy which has hijacked the CLC. A dictatorship that is not intent on managing the CLC for the development of our youth and the unity of labour movement, but to achieve the objective of making the PPP/C government look bad.  It is this dictatorship that is hurting the Critchlow Labour College and preventing the unification of the labour movement.
Dr. Nanda Gopaul, the Hon. Minister of Labour, in his contribution to the debate, said that it is inconceivable that one of the smallest unions in the country, with under two hundred members out of an organized labour population of fifty thousand, could hold the presidency and general secretary positions of the TUC, and for so long.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) in all of its conventions and policy statements speaks to the State and stakeholders consulting with the “most representative organizations of labour” The GTUC and certainly the composition of the Board of the CLC cannot and does not, pass this litmus test of the ILO.
At least two former CLC Principals – Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine and the late Godwin McPherson – wanted to ensure that the CLC would revert to being an institution of education, rather than a vehicle of politics.  Dr. Roopnaraine, Deputy Leader of APNU, in his contribution to the motion two Thursdays ago, acknowledged that there was need for the broadening of the labour representatives on the CLC board.
Dr. Roopnaraine, who spoke his heart that night, had worked hard towards bringing the financial records of the CLC up to date and to deal with the accountability aspects of the CLC.  He was at that time providing for the requirements which were asked of the college by the Minister of Education.
This angered the GTUC dictatorship, who began to put pressure on him and even threatened to fire him, causing him to quit in disgust, saying that the CLC was being run like “cake-shop”.  The late Godwin McPherson, for all his efforts to put education first and politics behind, was padlocked out of his office when he was principal.
It is this bitterness and stubbornness of the TUC dictatorship that is now turned on the National Assembly.  The PPP notes that both the TUC General Secretary, Lincoln Lewis, and its president, Leslie Gonsalves, have now zeroed in on the character assassination of Dr. Roopnaraine and Dr. Nanda Gopaul.  True to form, the leadership of the TUC would oppose all initiatives to bring democratic governance to the CLC.
The People’s Progressive Party, a party of workers, feels vindicated that it has all along correctly spoken about the leadership of the TUC’s efforts to keep out democratic governance from being the norm in the TUC.  This has been the plague of the TUC since the days of the PNC dictatorship, when at one time even two ministers of the PNC regime sat on the TUC Executive – another element which is against all of the ILO conventions.  This refusal to bring democratization to the TUC has also been the cause of the split in the labour movement and the formation of the FITUG.
The recent unanimity in the passage of the motion in Parliament was a rare show of consensus where the CLC was concerned; however, these hopes are once again being dashed by the minority that calls itself the Guyana Trades Union Congress.

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