Dear Editor,
We are approaching another May Day, the holiday of the working people. It is a time when workers celebrate their achievements and contemplate their future. This year, unfortunately, the toiling masses of Guyana have nothing to celebrate and a lot of concerns for the future.
In just two years, the PNC-led APNU regime has done great damage to our economy. It is the working people who are feeling the brunt of the pressures as a result of the regime’s faulty economic policies.
Indeed, the conditions of life for workers have deteriorated drastically. What we are witnessing is an onslaught on the working class.
Thousands of jobs are being lost in the Private Sector. Many small- and medium-scale enterprises are closing their doors, leaving their labour on the breadline.
As if this was not bad enough, we see the massive attack on the sugar workers. The sugar industry is being decimated. The Wales Estate has been closed, leaving almost 2000 workers out of employment.
This is one of the direct consequences of the Government’s action.
More people are affected as well. All the cane farmers in the Canals will be forced out, and the hundreds of workers whom they employ will also be added to the ranks of the unemployed.
We also see the massive preparations being put in place to shut Rose Hall and Enmore Estates. The regime announced also that Skeldon will have to go.
Thousands of sugar workers are facing a very bleak future. However, not only the workers and their families are going to suffer, but whole communities will become depressed. It will also affect the country as a whole.
This is totally unnecessary. Sugar does not have to close. It has the possibilities to add value to its product and transform the industry from a producer of raw sugar to a complex, producing many products such as electricity, alcohol, ethanol, refined sugar, and other special types of sugar. That list is not exhaustive. The investments to do these things are not so great.
The Indian Government had offered assistance to recapitalise the industry and allow it to develop into a complex.
Indian companies have shown great interest in the sugar sector.
A healthy relation can develop between GuySuCo and those companies in India and also in Brazil. However, the APNU regime has so far ignored the Indian interests and has not pursued the Brazilian option.
The regime is not interested in saving the industry. They seem gung-ho to close sugar.
It is not accidental. This regime is anti-working people. This is not just an attack on sugar workers; no, it is an attack on the whole working class.
By attacking the most advanced, the most militant section of the working class, they intend to weaken the trade union movement and working people as a whole. This will make the other contingent of the workers very vulnerable to future attacks by the regime.
Yet, the response from organised labour has been feeble.
This is because the leaders in the Guyana Trade Union Congress (GTUC) have taken too much of a PNC/APNU position. Most of them see themselves first as PNC/APNU. They are more defensive of the regime than the workers.
True, we heard one or two statements from the body, but nothing else.
On the other hand, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG) is bending backwards to prove that it does not have any political affiliations. It is, therefore, not seeking any political support to combat what is essentially a political act of this regime.
The disunity in the labour movement and its wrong tactics in not seeking alliances have contributed to the great damage to the working people of our country. The fundamental pillar of the movement – ‘solidarity’ has been seriously weakened. All workers are now dangerously exposed to greater exploitation, discrimination and victimisation.
On this May Day, the TUC and FITUG need to do some serious soul searching if they are to become effective in defending the working and oppressed in Guyana.
Their politics must be supporting and defending measures that promote and defend the interests of the working people, regardless of the personal political affiliations of the leaders. They must denounce the racial and political discrimination that is taking place. They must condemn the violation of human rights: they must defend the independence of the Judiciary, among other issues.
Failing to do so will only see the further decimation of the working class.
This May Day 2017, working people and their trade unions and other organisations must rethink their strategy and tactics. All efforts must be made for unity of all working people.
Disunity in the face of the onslaught by the regime is allowing for the reversal of the gains working people have made in recent times.
This is my view.
What is yours?
Donald Ramotar
Former President
