July 20, 2018 is another day of infamy under APNU+AFC; another of those days of infamy that are mounting at an unprecedented rate since May 2015. APNU+AFC voted against the re-establishment of a Ministry of Labour. A PPP motion with the total alliance of the united trade union movement in Guyana was vigorously opposed and voted against by APNU+AFC. Prime Minister Nagamootoo, who has represented himself as the champion of workers, especially sugar workers, voted against the motion to formally accept that a Ministry of Labour is a necessity.
July 20, 2018 saw APNU+AFC betraying the workers of Guyana. People who sit in the cabinet representing themselves as pillars of the working class; people like Nagamootoo, Keith Scott, Ramjattan, Charandass Persaud, Harmon, Volda Lawrence, Amna Ally shamelessly raised their voices against the workers. It was an ugly, reprehensible assault against workers and the working class. Shockingly, Rupert Roopnaraine, a senior member of Cabinet, and his fellow-WPA MPs totally rejected the WPA’s historically storied unity and alliance with labour.
Since May 2015, Guyana has suffered from the non-existence of a Ministry of Labour. With the refusal of APNU+AFC to support a legislative declaration that maintaining a Ministry of Labour is a commitment of all governments in Guyana, APNU+AFC reaffirmed its anti-labour stance. The legislative action was intended to ensure that workers of Guyana, representing more than half of the population of Guyana, have a Government ministry that is dedicated to protecting and promoting their rights and give them a seat in the Cabinet. APNU+AFC rejected the notion that workers should have a seat in the Cabinet. This APNU+AFC legislative posture formally breaks, or at the very least weakens, the tri-partite arrangement in place to protect and promote the rights of workers.
Interestingly, BIG BUSINESS has a seat in the cabinet. The Ministry of Business protects and promotes the legal and regulatory framework for BIG BUSINESS. APNU+AFC has given high prominence to this ministry by naming the President’s son-in-law as the minister with responsibility to protect and promote the environment for BIG BUSINESS.
I have no quarrel with the Granger-led APNU+AFC administration allowing entrepreneurs to have a seat in the Cabinet through the Minister of Business. The reformation that started with the PPP Government in 1992 to formulate and create a seat in the Cabinet — where employers and entrepreneurs have a seat in the Cabinet through a Minister of Business — is a good and necessary one. Transformation to strengthen the Ministry of Trade and Commerce, rejecting it from having a legislative role to control, limit and punish business — a role it played under the PNC Government — to formally recognising its commitment to protect and promote business, is a good thing.
But giving business a seat in the cabinet should not diminish and abrogate the right of workers to have a seat in the cabinet. Since May 2015, APNU+AFC has consistently diminished the role of labour in the cabinet. It refused to name a Minister of Labour, it made labour an increasingly ignored department in the Ministry of Social Protection. Even in colonial days, the presence of labour in Government was recognised. Persons like Ashton Chase, Jocelyn Hubbard, Janet Jagan, Henry Jeffrey and Nanda Gopaul have been Ministers of Labour, with a prominent role in the Cabinet. Cheddi Jagan, Forbes Burnham, Janet Jagan, Desmond Hoyte sat in cabinet as Presidents with labour imprimatur.
With its formal rejection of its responsibility to seat a Minister of Labour in the cabinet, APNU+AFC allows people to better understand a legacy of anti-workers policy and actions. When it closed the four sugar estates and uncaringly left more than 5,000 workers without jobs, it was an anti-working class move, a move reinforced by its refusal to honour severance payment to workers. When it refused to honour its pre-2015 election 20 per cent wage increase commitment to workers, including sugar workers, it was exposing its anti-working class posture. When it refused to deal with teachers’ salaries, and tell them they must be patient, APNU+AFC proudly brandished its anti-working class genes. When it did not take action to protect security guards who were not being paid, it was building on its anti-working class DNA. When it failed to secure the rights of cleaners in schools, it proudly underlined its anti-workers’ legacy. When it introduced more than 200 new taxes and VAT on more items, it was acting against the working class. With EXXON in place, I wonder whether the table for EXXON to abrogate the rights of workers is being carefully laid.
