Lincoln Lewis condemns Clive Thomas

Dec 28, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
In the veins of almost every Guyanese run the bitter sweet legacy of sugar. The Wales Sugar Estate closed its doors two Sundays ago. The coverage by the media of this issue, including the expressed views of those workers, requires of us to stop and take heed. None can deny that within recent years the sugar industry has not been economically feasible and has been dependent on the Consolidated Fund to maintain its activities. However, as a people what ought to be of major concern to us is the absence of treating with each other with dignity and respect, borne out of the principle of respecting the equality of all.
Our ancestors, be they slaves, indentured or colonised, fought valiantly against the brutish system of plantation society where the owners and managers treated them as sub-human and beasts of burden. The struggle for respect and dignity runs deep, and we who are the beneficiaries of those who fought for our freedom should keep trying at all cost not to repeat what they fought against. How we as a people are where we are today requires of us taking the time to reflect on where it went wrong and what ought to be done to correct it.
The Wales sugar workers are Guyanese and irrespective of their association- political or trade union – their entreaties to the management of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and Government of Guyana should have been treated with deserving respect. Those workers should have been given an ear, through their unions, to have their voices heard, including hearing if they had any proposal towards making the operation viable.
The Chairman of GuySuCo Board is Professor Clive Thomas, a man I consider a friend and colleague in the trade union movement. Thomas is renowned in the trade union community throughout the world as a leading labour economist. To his credit, he has not spared criticisms of the way the business of the industry was handled by the Forbes Burnham, Desmond Hoyte, Cheddie Jagan, and even Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar administrations.
The issue here is the treatment of the human resources element where under Thomas’ leadership both GuySuCo and the government have continued some of the said practices he is on record condemning. To the trade union community there is need to do introspect, and examine what role some of us played in contributing to workers/citizens being treated with contempt today. It is obvious that the decision-makers in closing the factory felt that they could do so without feeling within them that civility and constitutional requirement expect certain standard of behaviour. What is evident is that they chose to capitalise on the cleavages in the society to ram through their decisions.
Some leaders of the trade union have allowed partisan politics to trump universally acceptable principles. This has contributed to the achievements of the trade union movement being trampled on. When persons stayed silent for political expediency in the presence of others’ rights being transgressed and laws violated when the table turns similar silence is seen. If efforts are not made to rid this mindset from our midst the sacrifices of our forebears and those whose shoulders we stand on will come to naught.
The issue of sugar is a matter of national importance with dire consequences, all of which require studied responses that would have come through diverse engagements. For instance, 600 workers are now placed on the breadline. This will adversely alter theirs and their family standard of living, even more so that Guyana does not pay unemployment benefit.
The National Insurance Scheme (NIS), which is financially cash-strapped, immediately loses contributions that would have been paid by those workers, among whom are at least a quarter, who in the next six to seven years would be eligible for a pension. This contribution loss will put at risk the pension of every contributor to the scheme. And where there are more pensioners than contributors a scheme loses its viability.
Let me make it very clear, I am not opposed to measures being put in place to make GuySuCo profitable. What I am opposed to is the process being applied in the treatment of workers, and their representatives, which are reminiscence of the days when people had no constitutional protected right. The growth and development of this country require of us treating with each other, if not as brothers and sisters, as least as human beings with the inalienable right to be treated as equals with dignity and respect.
Lincoln Lewis

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Lincoln Lewis condemns Clive Thomas

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