May Day 2016: Government’s disinterest in working class

Dear Editor,
May Day is a day that workers use for celebration and also to highlight their problems and challenges.
This is the first May Day since the APNU+AFC regime took office and almost a year since they took power. Therefore, there is sufficient time to look at trends and attitudes of the regime to the working people of our country, mainly workers and farmers.
During the 2015 elections campaign, the two parties individually and collectively made big promises to the working people of our country. They promised huge increases in wages and salaries for workers in the public service, in the sugar industry and other places. They also promised huge increase to rice farmers for their paddy.
However, on assuming office, they dispensed with all the commitments they made. The working people are coming under severe pressure and no let-up is seen in the future, but just more pressure.
At the outset, the increase to workers in the public service has been meagre. The five per cent increase given for 2015 was not for the whole year, but only half of it. This robbed the workers of millions of dollars.
For 2016, the increase is also expected to be small since the regime has not announced their intention as to what increase to offer the working class.
Last year, too, they put an end to a policy that the PPP/Civic had in relation to our hard working security forces – one month salary, tax free, was given by the PPP/C Administration to the police, army, fire, and prison services during the month of December.
These are persons in high-risk jobs and the PPP/C showed its appreciation by allocating this to them during the festive period.
The APNU+AFC regime cut this added bonus for our personnel in the security sector.
This was one of the early signs of their anti-working class attitude. We also saw them reducing other benefits to our working people.
A clear case of this was the withdrawal of the ,000 granted to each child in the public school system. The regime also performed a three-card trick on our senior citizens. On the one hand, they gave an increase in old age pension. On the other hand, they removed the subsidies on water and electricity rates, which the PPP/C administration had instituted.
That act has put most of the pensioners in a worst financial position they were in before the increase was granted.
The regime has also dealt some very cruel blows to the sugar workers and rice farmers in our country. In the rice industry, due to poor diplomacy, they lost an important market for rice exports – the Venezuelan market.
At the same time, they have refused to lift a finger to support that very important sector. There has been no assistance with fertilizers, fuel or negotiation with banks to ease the burdens of the farmers. Instead, the regime has shirked their collective shoulder and stated that rice is private industry and they cannot interfere.
But that is not all.
They have removed the duty-free concessions on some important machinery, therefore, instead of easing the pressure on the industry, they have added to the burden. The regime has clearly abdicated their responsibility to this group of Guyanese working people.
Their attitude is even worse to workers in the sugar industry. The sugar workers made their target last year, but were paid the lowest in bonus and given no increase in pay. This is shocking and scandalous.
This industry has great potential to once again become one of the most profitable in our country. It needs investment now and would pay great dividends from the medium term.
However, the regime’s clear intention is to shut it down, without proposing an alternative/s. They have already announced the closure of the Wales Estate.
Now suddenly, we are hearing about closing the LBI operation.
There is no doubt that soon other estates will be put on the chopping block.
At the same time the regime is killing all the projects that can create jobs in the sugar industry and the country as a whole.
The most notable in this regard is establishment of the Amaila Falls Hydroelectric Power Station.
While they have dealt worse than miserly with the working people, we cannot say the same about their attitude to the bureaucratic elite and a section of the business class, whom they claimed made an investment in their assumption to power.
It is payback time, they are reaping a rich harvest.
Taxes are being piled up on the small huskers, taxi and minibus owners and persons in the security sector, who have to pay hefty sums in licences and fees.
In the meantime, we see how obsessed the regime’s officials are with ceremonies. They are spending millions on a new facility at D’Urban Park, while we already have other facilities like the National Park, and Stadium.
This money could have been better spent on the productive sector rather than “prestige” projects that will earn very little for our country.
The regime has demonstrated their disregard for working people in many more ways touched on above.
The fact that they did not see it fit to have, as part of their governance structure, a Ministry of Labour, speaks volumes of their attitude. Clearly they are saying to labour “you are not important.”
This May Day, workers will surely see the trends, and their conclusion can only be that the APNU+AFC regime is hostile to their interests.
Working people and their organisations must struggle now to stop the slide to dictatorship.
Unite and fight, you have nothing to lose but your claims!

Sincerely,
Donald Ramotar