…for workers?
On one level, it’s like a throwback to the schoolyard bravado we all know so well – the nursery schoolyard, that is. Here it was, a top honcho of the largest union in the country was calling the Labour Minister names… or rather EXCHANGING names with the fella. Last week, the Minister called trade union leaders “impotent” and this week the trade union leader from GAWU returned the favour by dubbing him a “Toothless watchdog”!!
Where are we heading in this New Year that’s barely a week old? What’s going on? We get a clue when we examine the barbs to find out what’s behind the name calling. When Minister Scott called the leaders of the two largest labour blocks why he’d given more funding to some obscure “cooperative” union, he was making an important point. How potent had these union blocks been over the last decade in protecting and furthering workers’ rights?
Wasn’t that what unions were supposed to be doing? Isn’t that the criteria for judging their “potency” in performing their work? You can’t judge trade unions by their prolixity in whipping off political letters to the press! But what about the retort of the trade unionist? He was speaking in the context of protecting workers’ rights but was claiming this matter the Minister was “toothless” in that respect. But this’s where your Eyewitness has a problem. Is the Labour Minister ipso facto a guardian of workers interests?
Point is, if that’s so, what’s the function of trade unions, who collect the “dues” straight from the workers’ pay packet – even before the said workers get to see that packet!?? The Minister is a functionary of the Government that is supposed to be looking after the interest of the entire sector within which, labour is a component. And we’re talking about the business sector, no? So isn’t the Minister supposed to have a holistic approach and just apply the laws that’ve worked out to balance the interests of labour and business?
And this is the crux of the matter of us ever having any hope of ever generating enough income to live in dignity, isn’t it? Labour representatives continue to use the mind-set that refuses to accept what we saw in the last half-century and is still going on in China: labour has to accept a certain amount of belt tightening when the country they live in is in the “take-off” stage. And this is what a Labour Minister has to represent.
Of course, your Eyewitness would like to have all workers tooling around in Mercedes Benzes. But maybe we have to first ride bicycles, don’t we?
…in shuffling
Your Eyewitness, being a born Guyanese, is an avid card player (he’d gone to funerals since short pants!). So, he knows a thing or two about “shuffling”. But he also knows about “shuffling” in moving your feet around a little when you’re fidgety. “Quit shuffling around!” Mrs Brown used to yell at the Eyewitness and his cohorts in Nursery School, when she was about to dole out licks for them calling each other names that descended into blows!
So when he heard the details about Prezzie “shuffling” his Cabinet, it was obvious that he, Prezzie, was merely insisting his charges not mill around. This was no “shuffling” of the pack like in the card games of your Eyewitness “wakes”.
Just moving around THREE Ministers in a Cabinet of TWENTY-EIGHT is a “shuffle”? But at least your Eyewitness is happy with one of that “moving around” gambit – Amna Ally being posted to “Social Protection”.
Even if she displays a tenth of the feistiness we saw in her stint at “Social Cohesion”… Guyanese society will be well protected!!
…at working
Not surprising, barista Ruel Johnson jumped into Red House outrage. Evidently Prezzie took the position he’d advised all along – throw the CJRC out on their ears!
He’s trying to save his behind for still not producing a cultural policy draft!
