Labour and class struggle

May 02, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Labour Day 2019 is one of the few times I have missed the march that begins from Parade Ground on Middle Street to Avenue of the Republic turning into D’Urban Street, making a left on Louisa Row, where I grew up, turning east on Regent Street into Albert Street to end up at the TUC headquarters on Woolford Avenue.
If there is an activity I enjoyed in my years as a social activist it is the Labour Day march. But I was there yesterday when the march turned into the National Park. As I drove into the park, the omission was overwhelmingly conspicuous. It was the omission of vehicles that tells you something about class struggle in Guyana.
I am a recurring decimal at the National Park (which should be renamed the Forbes Burnham Park; he did a phenomenal thing in creating it). When there are certain events there that include Jehovah’s Witnesses Conventions, earth day or climate day or green day or anti-racism day etc, the car park overflows. In Thomas Road, there is no space. On Albert Street adjoining Thomas Road, there is no space.
But yesterday, on the occasion of one of the most important events in the calendar year –Labour Day – the place was packed with marchers, but the car park had less than a third of its space occupied. I saw a few joggers going to their vehicles, which meant some of the few cars that were there, were not connected to Labour Day. There was plenty of room on Thomas Road and Albert Street.
If you go to the Inner Wheel Annual Hat Show in the Promenade Gardens (never been there and never will; just not my thing), the surrounding streets (Middle, Waterloo, New Market and Carmichael) are ringed with vehicles. Deductive reasoning should instruct you that the strata above the proletariat in class-divided Guyana (the middle class, lower middle class, upper middle class and the petty bourgeoisie) do not go to Labour Day. It is simply intriguing that you can have such an important occasion and parking spaces were not taken up because there were hardly any cars.
As I listened to the speakers, Lincoln Lewis said something that pierced my soul right there and then. He observed that GAWU’s president Komal Chand is ill and he wishes him a speedy recovery. Do the people of Guyana know that an entire generation of this country that currently live in Guyana was born after Komal Chand took office?
Half of Guyana’s population is 25 years. 70 percent of the population is under 36. What it means is that an entire generation was born or was in napkins or was using nursing bottles after some people came into office.
Here is a sample. Komal Chand is over 30 years in his job. The same goes for his counterpart in the Guyana Public Service, Patrick Yarde. Mike McCormack has been at the helm of the Guyana Human Rights Association for 30 years. The same number of years, Juman Yassin has chalked up heading the National Olympic Association. Coming close behind them is the head of ACDA, Ms. Jean Baptiste. My own buddy, Lincoln Lewis is not too far behind with more than 20 years as General Secretary of the TUC. After more than 40 years as head of the Dharmic Sabha, Pandit Reepu Daman Persaud died in office
Has anyone in Guyana ever heard about something called term limits? The answer is all Guyanese are familiar with it, because Bharrat Jagdeo has made that possible. It was Mr. Jagdeo who challenged the constitutional stipulation that a president can only serve two terms. The case in the Caribbean Court of Justice galvanized extensive interest in Guyana. If a citizen didn’t know what term limits was, after the Jagdeo court case, they certainly did.
So why are there not term limits for so many organizations in this country? Guyana is pathetically deficient in skilled personnel and people with experience. If there were term limits in GAWU, do you know how many experienced trade unionists GAWU would have produced? If there were term limits in the Olympic Association, do you know how many persons would have had a fair amount of experience in sport administration.
Do you know the boards of many public companies like insurance companies, commercial banks, have directors that are in their late seventies and have been on those boards for more than 30 years? Why are we treating young Guyanese with such disdain?
I will leave you with some startling information on me that will upset you. I have been the president of Guyana Chinese Checkers Association for the past 35 years. The pay is fantastic.

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