The state of workers in Guyana today cannot be examined in isolation from the actions of successive governments, particularly the current People’s Progressive Party (PPP) administration, which came to office promising to put Guyanese first.
When the PPP sat in opposition, it argued that only it possessed the courage and political strength to renegotiate the widely perceived lopsided ExxonMobil oil contract. It persuaded the nation that a PPP government would ensure that Guyana’s oil wealth benefited its people and that Guyanese workers would no longer be spectators in their own economy. Many workers believed those promises.
Long before oil production began, the trade union movement warned that Guyana needed a new development framework—one that protected Guyanese interests, guaranteed opportunities for local workers and businesses, and ensured that the country’s natural resources translated into meaningful benefits for its citizens.
Throughout the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) administration, the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) and its affiliated unions consistently maintained that Guyana’s emerging oil wealth must first and foremost benefit its people. That position has remained unchanged under successive PPP/C administrations, with the GTUC continuing to press for local content that goes beyond contracts and procurement to guarantee decent work, trade union representation, collective bargaining rights, skills development, and equitable participation by Guyanese workers in the country’s oil economy.
Today, we must ask ourselves an uncomfortable question: Have those promises been fulfilled?
Across the country, we have witnessed Guyanese-owned businesses, many operated by citizens whose families built this nation over generations, disappear from the commercial landscape. Along the East Coast Demerara corridor and in other communities, properties once occupied by local businesses are now rented to persons who have come here to do business.
Instead of implementing programmes to strengthen local enterprise, many Guyanese entrepreneurs have found themselves pushed to the margins of the economy. We are confronting a painful reality as to whether Guyanese are being afforded a fair opportunity to participate in the economy of their own country. The same concern exists in the oil and gas sector.
Several years after first oil, Guyanese workers employed in the petroleum sector remain without meaningful trade union representation. The Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU) remains the only union to have successfully gained a foothold in the industry, undertaking sustained efforts to organise workers and secure recognition as their bargaining agent. Those efforts, pursued while Labour Minister Joseph Hamilton had responsibility for industrial relations, ultimately failed after the Trade Union Recognition Board—whose membership includes government-appointed and trade union representatives and which the union says is aligned with the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C)—refused to grant recognition, effectively denying workers the right to collective bargaining.
Employers have changed. Contracts have changed. Companies have entered and exited the industry. But the fundamental issue remains the same—workers still lack the collective voice necessary to protect their rights in one of the richest industries in Guyana’s history.
Equally troubling is the increasing use of foreign labour under conditions that raise serious questions about labour standards and enforcement.
Workers are being brought into Guyana and, in some instances, are reported to be working without proper safety helmets, safety boots and other protective equipment. This is bigger than the issue of wages alone. It is about the conditions under which people are employed. It is about ensuring that no employer is permitted to exploit vulnerable workers while simultaneously undermining the wages and employment opportunities of Guyanese citizens.
When employers can recruit workers prepared—or forced—to work under poorer conditions and for lower wages, it creates downward pressure on labour standards for everyone. That is not in the interest of Guyanese workers or foreign workers. Every worker deserves fair wages, safe working conditions and respect for the law, which are often ignored , or when enforced only to the benefit of a selected few, not all.
The trade union movement must therefore intensify its efforts to organise workers under the realities of today’s economy. We cannot continue relying on organising models developed in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s while expecting to confront the challenges of a rapidly changing global economy. The world, workplace and the economy have changed. The trade unions must also change.
New industries require new organising strategies. Oil and gas, construction, logistics and emerging sectors cannot remain outside effective worker representation while billions of dollars are generated from Guyana’s natural resources.
Workers also have a responsibility. Too often, warnings from the trade union movement have been dismissed or portrayed as being against development or against the national interest. We were told that raising concerns about labour rights, local content and the protection of Guyanese businesses was somehow inimical to progress. Time has exposed the consequences of ignoring those warnings.
Many Guyanese businesses have disappeared. Many Guyanese workers continue to struggle for meaningful employment while foreign labour expands. The cost of living continues to rise even as oil revenues flow into the country at unprecedented levels. This is not the future workers were promised.
The wealth generated from Guyana’s oil must improve the lives of Guyanese workers first. Development cannot be measured solely by economic growth statistics or impressive infrastructure. It must also be measured by whether workers enjoy secure jobs, fair wages, safe workplaces and the protection of their rights.
The labour movement cannot remain silent. Nor can workers remain divided. The time has come for workers to organise, to stand together and to insist that development serves the people whose labour built this country. If we fail to do so, we risk creating a Guyana where our people become strangers in their own economy—watching prosperity pass them by while others determine their future.
Workers have always been the architects of progress. Now they must become the defenders of their own future.
