From May Day to Merriment Day!

May 02, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The trade union movement has reached its apogee. The majority of workers at yesterday’s May Day rally were more interested in rum, beer and food than they were about listening to the speeches of their leaders.

May Day has been reduced to a series of sporting events. Workers are celebrating their day by getting drunk and having a good time.

This is a deserving fate to the disunity which has characterized the trade union movement in Guyana.

The trade union movement today is a shell of itself. The numbers of unionized workers have shrunk. Those who remain on the union roll lack the militancy of long ago.

Very few unions can today call a successful strike, long the traditional weapon of unions. When workers lose their main strike force – the withdrawal of labour, they are virtually helpless.

This is the state in which workers find themselves. This is no better illustrated by the impotence of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU), the largest union in Guyana. GAWU called many strikes during the time of the PNC and the PPP. But today when the industry is on the verge of being downsized as never before, GAWU has no bark and no bite.

Sugar workers have been denied two years in succession their annual production incentive. GAWU has been unable to force the sugar company to pay same. Sugar workers have also been denied pay increases. The union cannot do anything for the workers. The workers at Wales are entitled to termination benefits. The sugar company is not paying these benefits. GAWU cannot even get its sister unions to come out in support of the payment of termination benefits for workers.

The façade of unity was exposed this May Day. The TUC and FITUG came together for a rally, but this was all they did, because the speakers at that rally spoke to virtually empty stands.

In the meantime, over at the Guyana Public Service Union Headquarters, workers were divided. The results of the elections of last week cannot yet be known. No one knows who won those elections, whether new elections will have to be held, or whether the longstanding leader of the GPSU will concede.

The trade union movement has been accused of having fossilized leadership. But the real problem is not the leadership. The leadership of trade unions in Guyana is only a microcosm of the divisions in the wider society. The trade union movement is divided politically. Political loyalty is more important than trade union militancy, and this has been the historic downfall of labour.

If tomorrow, the APNU+AFC government cuts workers’ salaries by half, the workers within the public service will take it, because the majority of workers in the public service support the government. GAWU cannot do anything for sugar workers, yet the workers in the sugar belt will not break with GAWU because the majority of them see GAWU as an opposition union.

For years, the unions which supported the PNC connived to ensure that the leadership of the Trade Union Movement did not fall into unfriendly hands. GAWU, the largest trade union in Guyana, has never had the distinction of leading the Guyana Trades Union Congress. The rules have always been stacked against GAWU. All the pleas for the democratization of the TUC have fallen on deaf ears. This ultimately led to the formation of a parallel trade union grouping, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG). These days, people are questioning whether FITUG is truly independent.

There was a time when the PNC government induced workers to participate in May Day rallies by offering them free food and drinks. People were so starved of a good time in those days that the mere dangling of these goodies was enough to have them go out and march. Of course, many went because they were afraid that if they did not, they would be dismissed.

May Day parades are now a shadow of what they used to be in the days of forced participation. But the beer and rum drinking and the food are still there in abundance. Workers have turned May Day into a day to get drunk and have a good time. Workers are poking fun at the impotence of their unions by turning May Day into a big ‘sport’

Long live the divided and politicized trade union movement of Guyana!

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