Today is “Labour Day” but with the condition of the labour movement in Guana today, they might as well be screaming “Mayday!! Mayday!!”!! Which is what May 1st used to be called for millennia in most of Europe but also signals a desperate call for help at sea. And our labour movement is definitely at sea!! They may as well be skipping around a “Maypole” tugging at ribbons as in the old pagan custom for all they’re doing about their mission!!
In the late 19th century, socialists declared May 1 to be “Labour Day” to highlight the abuses against the working class against the “rapacious” capitalists commemorating a worker-owner battle in Chicago in the US on that day. This militancy was adopted by our labour leaders in Guyana – coming as we did out of a history of exploitation in slavery and indentureship. Well, today most of the workers of the world ARE shouting “Mayday!! Mayday” because capitalism is even more dominant today after 100 years of workers’ agitation”!!!
The vehicle for articulating worker’s rights were the “trade unions” – the “trades” being the skilled workers who first demanded better working conditions and pay. For most of the 20th century, trade unions were pretty powerful, since they not only could flex their muscles in strikes against their employers, but they could influence their members to vote for particular political parties! In Guyana, as a matter of fact, practically all our early leaders – like Jagan and Burnham – came out of the trade union movement.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century – the election of Thatcher in Britain (1979) and Reagan (1980) in the US! Together they espoused the primacy of the “free market” in all social relations – including the labour market – and defenestrated the labour movement. That means they made it toothless!! With the global spread of neo-liberal philosophy workers were pretty much had to deal on a one-on-one basis with their employers.
In Guyana, however, trade unions were never just about workers’ rights. Since the economy was essentially run for colonial interests, to agitate against them was to make a “political” point! Nowhere was this more evident than in sugar where the tentacles of the largest sugar company, Bookers, were so intrusive in the economy, British Guiana was known as “Bookers Guyana”.
The strikes by sugar workers were actions against the British state – and in every decade from 1872 to 1948 sugar workers were killed for asserting their rights. In this way, they fought for the rights of ALL Guyanese. But the PNC conspired to peripheralize the Sugar Union within the umbrella TUC after nationalizing and destroying sugar.
Today, we’ll again see a (labour) house divided!!
…for the sick
Now don’t get your Eyewitness wrong. The PPP government’s been throwing a lot of money into the health sector. What with “smart hospitals” launched in outlying places and new equipment installed in the primary and secondary ones, you’d think health care delivery would be better by now! But from the reports in the dailies it really doesn’t appear that’s the case. For some reason, the old folk wisdom of seeing government hospitals as essentially holding areas for their morgues, hasn’t been wiped out. Gotta be something about folks in charge of delivering “free” services!! In Guyana at least, they still see folks turning up for such services as the “undeserving” poor.
And that’s where the new private hospital that opened up at Leonora comes in! In Georgetown, where there are several Privates competing with the “Big” Public Hospital –the ONLT tertiary one in Guyana! – folks have a choice!!
Which will now be available in the countryside with more private hospitals on the way!! Hurray for competition!!
…for NISA
One daily just panned the government’s re-loaded NISA as being unrealistic for thinking they can operate in “foreign” like the CIA!! Well, didn’t folks once snicker at Israel’s Mossad?? Today – as far as Israel’s security’s concerned – they’re beyond formidable!!
