Guyana’s 54th Republic Anniversary finds citizens struggling to protect and defend the right to self determination
54 years after Guyana broke the final yoke of colonial domination this nation’s most pressing threat resides within its borders, even as citizens are on alert to guard against a potential rude invader, our Western neighbour, Venezuela.
Republic Day finds many citizens/workers questioning whether the ideal of our founding fathers and mothers to establish a country whose inhabitants will strive to be ‘One People One Nation One Destiny’ is becoming an illusion.
2024 finds Guyana ranked amongst the world’s fastest growing economies- some say the world’s fastest- yet so are denied, deprived and made to feel the proverbial rich Eldorado is for a few and not all.
2024 finds the nation’s public school teachers on strike to secure the most basic of rights and freedoms i.e. the right to self-determination in joining a trade union of choice and having that union engage in collective bargaining on its members’ behalf, and exercising the freedom to strike to bring attention to existing grievances. The Government since August 2024 has ignored the rights of the teachers and their union, the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU).
2024 finds public servants, through the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU), issuing the Government an ultimatum to sit at the negotiation table and engage in collective bargaining. The year finds the Ministry of Labour refusing to address grievances placed on its table for bauxite workers as represented by the Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union (GB&GWU). Its finds the partisan-aligned Trade Union Recognition Board colluding with cohorts of the government to deny independent trade unions recognition in existing or new bargaining units
These rights, which are enshrined in the Constitution of Guyana (Article 147) and adumbrated in the International Labour Organisation Convention Nos. 87 and 98 which Guyana ratified in 1966, are under threats
Workers, in the midst of a $1.146 Trillion Budget, see nothing in store for them commensurate with their labour, desire to contribute to the development and protection of this dear land.
More and more each day the gap between the haves have-nots widens as the vulnerable and working poor are becoming socially and economically estranged from the nation’s abundance of wealth and resources. Guyanese bear witness to an avaricious regime hastily developing policies and implementing programmes where foreigners and few locals are given preferential treatment.
In 2024 rights and the rule of law are under assault, posing clear and present danger to the wellbeing of all, for what affects one individual or group inevitably affects all. As Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his wisdom advised:
“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be…This is the inter-related structure of reality.”
We honour this day in tribute to National Hero, Cuffy who laid the first blow for the freedoms of the inhabitants of this land, and named celebratory event, Mashramani (celebration after hard work) in honour our First Peoples but many question what is there to celebrate, adn not without justification.
In 2024 the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) therefore calls on all Guyanese to unite and put a stop to the lawlessness, greed, alienation, violation and abuse. GTUC, particularly, urges the young, vulnerable and working class to stand up and demand what we are entitled to. We must not be afraid and must never give up our right to fight for our nation and the rights of every single Guyanese, regardless of race, colour, class or creed. We work to build, we sow and we have the right to reap and enjoy all our nation’s resources without prejudice.
