Chairman, Leaders of the Trades Union Movement, workers, officials, members of the media, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
When I was invited by letter to deliver the feature address and declare open this 6th. triennial Conference of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG), I hesitated particularly as I looked at the calibre of my predecessors for the last three Conferences. In 2009, it was Senior Counsel Ashton Chase who is arguably the most knowledgeable person in Guyana in the law and practice of labour matters. He was followed in 2012 by Mr. Donald Ramotar, then President of Guyana and three years later by Dr. Nanda Gopaul who has had a proud and active association with the labour movement and more particularly with the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees of which he was once the General Secretary.
I accepted, so I must deliver, whatever my concerns, reservation and nervousness.
In this presentation, if you do not shout me down earlier, I want to deal with some of the troubling issues confronting the labour movement and the country. The order of topics is sugar, next I will speak briefly about oil and successive governments’ failure to protect the patrimony of the country and the interest of the people. I will then turn attention to the disunity and leadership crisis in the labour movement, government and labour, and threats to democracy.
This triennial conference is taking place against the backdrop of massive layoff and termination in one of the major sectors of the economy. It is estimated that when the so-called reorganisation of the State-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation is completed, approximately ten thousand persons whose only job-skills were learnt during sometimes decades of work the nature of which has changed little since slavery will have been put on the breadline to eke out a living along with approximately forty to fifty thousand dependents. I have found it difficult to find another parallel and in terms of sheer numbers, this must be single largest layoff in the history of Guyana.
But what did I find. Neither the Government nor the Corporation has put in place mechanisms to cushion the financial, social, economic and personal impact and consequences on lives and livelihoods of these people. Whatever your ideology or philosophy, whatever you think of the ethnicity to which the workers belong or the political parties they support, whatever you think of the management of the Corporation, for long periods appointed and controlled by the PNC (1976 – 1992) followed by the PPP (1992 – 2015) and more recently by the APNU+AFC (2015 – 2018), whatever you think about the lifecycle of the industry, the Government’s handling of the crisis for which they alone are not responsible, not only leaves much to be desired, but seems callous, remorseless, insensitive, cruel and shortsighted.
When the APNU+AFC Government first came to power, it appointed a Commission of Inquiry headed by a former Minister of the PNC Government and Dr. Clive Thomas, the renowned economist and Chairman of the Board of GuySuCo. The Report and recommendations of that Commission of Inquiry have been ignored by the very Government that appointed it. Then came a White Paper presented to the National Assembly by the Minister of Agriculture Mr. Noel Holder. Hardly any time elapsed before that initiative was abandoned and a vesting Order was made carving out substantial assets to NICIL which the same Government when in opposition had treated with derision and disdain. Those assets were transferred to NICIL at no cost, arguably in violation of both legal and accounting principles and then the Government, with a straight face, tells the workers that there is no money to pay the barest minimum to which the law entitles them under the Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Act. Most bizarrely, responsibility for GuySuCo has now been transferred from the Minister of Agriculture to the Minister of Finance leaving one to wonder what the Ministry of Agriculture now does.
Let me make this clear. I had consistently criticised the mismanagement of the Corporation under the PPP/C and recall a column I did under the caption that GuySuCo was too big to succeed. Measures were clearly necessary to address the haemorrhaging which had been taking place in the Corporation for several years for which the workers and their Unions faced the brunt of the blame. But surely this Washington Consensus based approach to resolving the Corporation’s problems is shortsighted and will create as many problems as it has created.
As is common in every society, agricultural activities form a major segment of their rural divide, preventing urban drift and allowing for a less unbalanced economy. In Guyana, that has been most pronounced, particularly with sugar. The danger of taking the approach which this Government has done, is to drain the lifeblood of entire communities leading inexorably to withering and death. For the political elite, including Messrs. Moses Nagamootoo and Khemraj Ramjattan, this is just another policy action with no concern for people, and which fails to understand the broader implications of such action.
Himself a student of history, President Granger must be aware of the war waged against the miners’ union and its President Arthur Scargill in the UK in 1984-85 by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She saw her role as crushing of the Union and its President. The embers however still flicker and thirty years after that pyrrhic victory which partly earned her the moniker the Iron Lady, the London Guardian of February 2014 reported that the line at the local church project that gives free breakfasts to whoever shows up has kept growing.
I sincerely doubt that this is what President Granger, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and Vice President Khemraj Ramjattan wish for these communities and the legacy for which they would like to be remembered.
Let me close this segment by making a few recommendations although I am not confident of any responsiveness by this government. The first step is that the workers must be paid their statutory entitlement to Severance Pay promptly and fully. Second, the workers must be encouraged and assisted in the difficult task of retraining and re-education. We are too small a society to throw a significant segment of the population to survive as best as they could. As a society, we have a responsibility to assist the most vulnerable in our midst. In the case of the Government, that is a duty. .
Third, workers must be given lands to carry out the trade and earn their livelihood in the activity in which they are most proficient. The value to the Government of some privatisation proceeds in the short term is simply not worth the long term effects of deprivation of some safety net to the workers. Fourth, businesses must be encouraged and given incentives to employ terminated GuySuCo employees. Fifth, new economic activities, and businesses, established in the areas affected by the closures, which create new employment should be granted the incentives available under section 2 of the Income Tax (In Aid of Industry) Act. Sixth, direct and indirect contributions to the welfare of terminated GuySuCo employees including scholarships to the children of those workers, should be made tax deductible, at least for businesses.
This is no more than an indicative list. It is not exhaustive and I am sure these can be added to. The challenge is whether the Government has closed a discussion which it never started or encouraged, has ceased to listen, and equally importantly, whether the Unions representing these workers and which have become financially strong on the dues from those workers, have the will and the energy to defend and advance the case for the workers.
Oil and successive governments’ failure to protect the patrimony of the country and the interest of the people
I have extracted from the source, a list of the Oil Producing countries of the World . The list has been adapted to reflect the annual barrels per capita and the annual revenue resulting therefrom. Guyana, which was not previously included, was added to list at the capacity of producing 500,000 barrels per day. The price of a barrel of oil has been assumed at US$50.
Source: http://world.bymap.org/OilProduction.html [as modified]
While Russia’s daily production is approximately 20 times that of Guyana’s estimated production, it should be noted that when ranked by annual total oil revenue per capita, Guyana will stand as number 1 amongst the oil-producing countries of the world.
Translated to revenue, and given the expected volumes, the impact on the economy and on Guyanese will be substantial, despite a poorly negotiated contract. Indeed, even using conservative numbers, we expect Government revenues to treble when both the direct and indirect revenues are taken into account. The next challenge is of course how the money needs to be spent. If Guyanese workers have as much say in the spending as they have had in collective bargaining or the environmental implications of oil production, then the Government will simply act in its own style and judgment.
Disunity in the Trade Union Movement
Millennials will be forgiven for believing that the split in the trade union movement is part of the reality of Guyana life, as deleterious and as predictable as the famous Jagan/Burnham split on 1955. We recall that the split originated in 1988 and lasted for five years to 1993 when there was some reunification. Then in 1999 another breakaway, this time over the shooting of public servants. And since then despite the efforts of local and leading regional trade unionists, the movement is as divided as ever, marked by separate marches and meaningless speeches. I have spoken to some of the leading personalities on both sides of the divide and it is clear to me that the split has come down to personalities and who stands to gain more and at whose expense if there was such re-unity. Anyone who takes a passing interest in international labour matters will be aware that the American Federation of Labour and the Committee for Industrial Organisations merged in 1955 to become the largest federation of Unions in the USA after several years of bickering and estrangement.
On one side, there are GAWU, the Guyana Labour Union, the Clerical and Commercial Workers Union and the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees. In the TUC, there are ten affiliated Unions, including the CCWU which appears to be part of both bodies. A complete outlier is the Guyana Public Service Union which stands alone and which is heard from about once per year when it makes hollow sounds about the imposition of a wage increase in violation of the Constitution regarding free collective bargaining. It is probably worth a mention at this stage that the 2018 Estimates of the Public Sector indicate that the TUC will receive $15 million in this year and the Guyana Teachers Union will receive $5 million. No FITUG affiliate receives any subvention from the Government although there is no indication that one set contributes to the national coffers while the other does not. Whether the labour movement recognises this or not, this appears a clear case of discrimination and divide and rule.
So bad is the situation that no leader of any of the unions affiliated with the TUC is present here today. I am unable to say whether they were invited but whatever it is, their absence, and possibly no invitation to them smacks of inexcusable pettiness that is unbecoming of mature leaders. Inevitably, the only beneficiary of such shortsightedness and pettiness is the employer, including the Government which remains one of the largest employers in the country. On the other hand, the biggest losers are the workers of the country whose wellbeing, welfare, salaries and conditions of employment are ignored.
I sincerely hope that from the floor of this Conference will pose some serious questions to the leaders of FITUG about whether they are really interested in the workers welfare rather than pursuing narrow private ersonal agendas. And let the debate be not about who will gain more but around a platform of Sustainable People-Centred Development in Guyana based on Labour’s Platform for the Americas developed by the union movement of the Region. I have seen a copy of a Draft of that Platform that was presented by Commentator Ramon Gaskin to the Trades Union Congress. Among the strategies are:
A new approach to the economy that encourages sustainable development and places decent jobs and full employment at its heart; national economic policy to prioritise productive investment and universal public social services to address existing inequalities; tackling the informal and criminalized sectors of the economy; insisting that companies adhere to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the UN Global Compact and other framework Agreements; a role for cooperatives; a sustained strategy for redistributing income toward labour; food security; full employment etc.
Government and Labour
This government is past its midway stage and it seems fair to assess its contribution to enhancing and improving the position workers in the country. From January 1, 2017, the national minimum wage for the private sector was increased to $255 per hour or $10,200.00 per week or $44,200.00 per month, an amount that even a single individual would find impossible to sustain the minimum dietary requirements without consideration of rent or any of the basic comforts that make life worth living.
On the debit side, despite having the largest number of Ministries and Ministers since 1966, President Granger could not find room for a dedicated senior Ministry and Minister of Labour. It has failed to pass a single piece of worker related or primary social legislation. It continues to violate the constitutionally guaranteed right to free collective bargaining and routinely and arbitrarily imposes increases without consultation, let alone negotiations. And for several months now, a new Trades Union Recognition Board has not been constituted, even as the Government continues to ignore Article 13 and Article 149 C in relation to involving the citizenry in matters affecting their interest.
But the ultimate indignity from the Government to the Trade Union movement came from Minister Keith Scott who described the leadership of the movement as “impotent”. While under public demands the Minister walked back from the insult, he received no reprimand from the President or any member of the Cabinet.
Crisis of leadership
Without in any way excusing the crudeness of the Minister’s language, it may be that he was trying to point out what in my view is a crisis of leadership in the labour movement. Democracy in this country owes its birth and development to the labour movement in the persons of Critchlow, Jagan and Burnham. Yet for some time, we have witnessed the slow and painful crippling of the movement under its current leadership comprising individuals who seem to have no new idea, no vision and no energy, and to put it bluntly, no capacity to advance the interests of the workers. This leadership has allowed industries and new employers to pass them by with the result that the representation of the labour force among employers and sectors that arose in the past twenty years is probably zero.
I recall from my own childhood days when the average school child could name the leaders of the various unions. Now, I am doubtful if more than a handful of adults can name the head of the CCWU or the Guyana Printing and General Workers’ union to cite two examples.
In terms of their activism, when the leaders do appear, it is to lead their workers on Labour Day of each year made more famous for the after sport than for any serious resolutions. And then they retreat into hibernation for the next 364 days except when periodic union elections are due, weighted heavily in their favour, shutting out any youthful challenges, stunting development and often killing democracy.
Many of these leaders enjoy job security on the backs and dues of workers who under Collective Agreements signed by the very leaders are subject to mandatory retirement age. As we heard in the reports a short while ago, changes come only with death, in a system that can fairly be described as office for life. These leaders have so bent the rules in their favour that challenges at election time are invariably doomed to failure.
The system for the election of office bearers in the Unions is so arranged that the membership finds it almost impossible to make personnel changes. The Government which finds the leaders weak and ineffective, and which has its own democratic challenges, enjoys and benefits from the status quo. In that sense, the leadership instead of making the Unions strong, actually does the opposite.
The whole structure of the movement needs to change, term and age limits introduced and new blood nurtured. I must confess to a total lack of hope that things will change and as I look to the future, all I see is the further decimation of the movement by its leadership.
You will have noted that I have not named any one person since naming is not necessary for the simple reason that there is no exception.
I want to talk briefly about some of the signs that can weaken democracy. This Government has a much better record than its predecessor in terms of constitutional bodies and local government elections. But there are other developments that are cause for concern. President Granger has appointed himself as the counterpoint to pronouncements by the judiciary. He has unilaterally handpicked a Chairman of the Elections Commission whose principal function is the declaration of who is to be President. His Government decides if and when the people’s representatives will meet and what business they can transact. A look at the website of the Parliament of Guyana shows that for the eighty seven days of this year, the National Assembly met just four times. This is not the democracy that we have been promised.
As we have seen in the USA 2016 Presidential elections and the Brexit Vote in the UK, there are now more subtle ways to influence elections than the open rigging that characterised elections from 1968 to 1985. All it will take is someone paying the infamous Cambridge Analytica a few hundred thousand United States Dollars to spread fake news and disinformation to sway about ten thousand votes. With the money that will be around in 2020, that should be the easiest thing to do.
And finally, I want to make some brief remarks about one of the elephants that none of the political parties want to acknowledge, let alone address. And that is the absence of any regulatory framework governing political parties and the absence of campaign financing legislation. For purposes of the law, political parties are none entities and unlike a company, a co-op or a trade union, they do not have to file any report with any regulator. They are outside of the law and yet want to proclaim themselves as the paragons of constitutional government.
It is time that this lawlessness is brought to an end and we the people must respond to calls for our votes with a demand to fix this problem which spawns money-laundering. We must stop encouraging and in some cases participating in the lawlessness. I can only wonder how these parties explain their source of income and how those businesses including companies manage to make huge donations to political parties while their books of accounts are as clean as a whistle.
Let the mantra be no party regulation, no vote. And no campaign financing legislation, no donation.
With those words, it is now my pleasure to declare open this 6th. Triennial Congress of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana.
Thank you.