BY SHERWOOD CLARKE, GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE CLERICAL & COMMERCIAL WORKERS’ UNION
The Trade Union Movement has a vested interest in the development of Guyana. More than that; it has a right and duty to be actively involved in the development task.
DEVELOPMENT AND THE WORKERS’ STANDARD OF LIVING:
The whole purpose of Trade Unionism is to secure the best conditions of life for its members, the workers. The standard of life that the workers can achieve depends upon the country’s economy.
If the country is poor and backward, the workers’ wages and working and living conditions will generally be poor. No amount of trade union militancy will be able to change this fact. On the other hand, as the country prospers, as the wealth generated within the economy increases, there will be larger surpluses for distribution to the workers by way of wages and other benefits.
Put another way, as the national cake gets bigger, every worker can get a larger slice. But the national cake can only get bigger if we develop Guyana.
THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS:
Development is a complex process. It involves expanding economic activity by setting up new industries, exploiting new resources, and creating new employment opportunities.
It also implies greater efficiency in the management of economic enterprises and greater productivity for the workers. It necessitates the improvement of workers’ skills capability and general education, not merely to enable them to be more efficient on the job but, importantly also, to enable them to live fuller and more enjoyable lives as human beings.
For us in Guyana, development must also mean the establishment of institutions and procedures to ensure that the wealth generated within the economy is distributed equitably and that workers secure the just rewards of their Labour.
The Trade Union Movement, then, has a self-interest in promoting the development of Guyana.
DEVELOPMENT AND WORKERS’ EDUCATION
The whole business of development begins and ends with people. They are the agents of development, but they are also its beneficiaries. The success of our development efforts will depend, therefore, upon how well workers perform their tasks and also how sensibly they utilize the fruits of development.
TRADE UNIONS’ RESPONSIBILITY FOR WORKERS’ EDUCATION
Education is the basic task of the Trade Union Movement in the discharge of its responsibility for national development. This education must be of a three-fold nature:
- It must help workers to improve their skills, thereby increasing their efficiency and fostering pride in their work.
- It must inspire relevant attitudes, based upon an understanding of the objectives and broad national goals.
- It must encourage them to accept a rational scale of value that motivates them to make the most sensible and satisfying use of their talents, money, and time. In other words, it must ensure that workers not only learn how to make a living but learn how to live.
Workers are the decisive factor in the development process. Properly trained and motivated, they constitute the surest foundation upon which our development strategy can be based.
The Trade Union Movement, then, must be tireless in extending the scope and quality of workers’ education.
However, it is not enough for a worker to acquire a high degree of skill or proficiency in his line of work. He needs to appreciate how important he is as an individual, how important his job is, and how important are his own attitudes and habits, in the context of the country’s development. He must be aware of national issues, as they relate to development, and try to understand how and why they affect him and his comrades.
STRENGTHENING THE WORKERS’ ECONOMIC BASE
The Trade Union Movement has the potential for promoting a wide range of economic activity among its members. Such economic activity not only helps to strengthen the financial base of workers but helps in process of the country’s development.
Every pepper, lime or head of lettuce which is grown increases the nation’s stock of economic goods as does every button, handkerchief or table manufactured.
This production is of importance to the national economy in that it reduces the need for importation, saves foreign exchange and enables us to buy more capital goods for development.
This brings me to an important point. The results of the development process should be the economic and financial security of workers. I don’t think that by the mere reliance on wage they can ever achieve this kind of security. And a system of unemployment doles has its psychological disadvantages. The workers’ economic and financial base should be widened beyond the mere wage nexus.
CO-OPERATIVES AND WORKERS’ ECONOMIC POWER
I suggest, therefore, that it would be consistent with our development strategy and objectives if the Trade Union Movement mobilizes the great human and financial potential of its membership into co-operatives societies for economic activity. If properly organized and managed, these societies can bring vast economic resources under the control and ownership of workers. The financial returns flowing from them can give strength and security to the worker which frees him from the uncertainties and fears that the wage nexus engenders.
Development is about people and for people. Our development strategy is designed to put the workers eventually in control of economic power within the state. Such control implies ownership of economic factors. Workers must cease being passive wage-earners, mere tools of production within the economy, and become involved in economic enterprises as managers, owners, and decision-makers.
Co-operatives make possible for the workers the control and ownership of economic factors and the acquisition of real economic power. Co-operatives are thus a powerful instrument for development and the principal means by which we can ensure an equitable distribution of the wealth generated by the economy.
TRADE UNION MOVEMENT AS A MOBILIERS OF SAVINGS
The need to mobilize our savings for national development. The Trade Union Movement can and ought to be one of the main agencies for mobilizing such savings. Through Co-operative Credit and Thrift Societies. The Movement is capable of harnessing the savings of its members.
The proper utilization of such savings can be a great stimulus to our development. Instead of lending them to buy luxury and other consumer goods, they ought to go into development projects.
The Credit Societies could well be the means of financing the business enterprises of the other co-operative societies sponsored by the Trade Union Movement.
THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT AND ECONOMIC STABILITY
The success of development efforts will depend upon economic stability. Such stability will be impossible if wages and prices keep chasing each other in a mad, futile race.
On the other hand, the Trade Union Movement has a complementary duty to resist inflation by avoiding wage demands which which are unreasonable, and which (if obtained) do not increase the purchasing power of the workers, in the final analysis.
There is another important reason why the avoidance of excessive wage claims is vital to the success of national development. We still have a substantial number of unemployed people. Indeed, those who have permanent employment are in a favored position.
Thus, a choice becomes inevitable between distributing surpluses to increase the income of those who already have employment or using them to provide new employment opportunities for those comrades who have no jobs.
Our development can be rapidly achieved if we put all of our idle human hands to work. We cannot afford the waste of economic unemployment.
A careful policy on wages by the Trade Union Movement is necessary to help reduce the level of unemployment as quickly as possible and accelerate the pace of the country’s development. The policy will only be relevant in the context of continuing stability in the cost of living generally.
INDUSTRIAL AND POLITICAL STABILITY
There are just two final conditions for successful economic development which I would like to mention. There is industrial and political stability.
Development requires a regime of industrial and political peace. No progress can be made if we dissipate our time, energy, and resources in fighting one another.
The economic cost of strikes, sick-outs, go-slows, lock-out, and other forms of industrial conflict is enormous. In simple terms, the cost of this kind of conflict reflects itself in fewer new jobs, a slower rate of increase in workers’ real income, and, generally a slowing down of the pace of development.
I am not for the minute suggesting that the Trade Union Movement should abandon its militancy. A Trade Union, which is not militant, is dead or dying. I do suggest, however, that militancy is not the same as rashness or irresponsibility.
It is important to every worker that the rate of development be quickened so that, with the increase in the size of the national cake, he can get a bigger share. In other words, his standard of living will increase. This certainly is what the Trade Union Movement is striving for on behalf of its workers. It is certainly what we hope for from the development of Guyana.
The Trade Union Movement in the best interests of the workers, should prevent unnecessary industrial conflict. By fulfilling this obligation with steadfast courage, the Movement can have a direct and powerful influence on the rapid development of the country.
In the final analysis, we need political stability. I do not think that I must spell out.
We need a firm Government, capable of maintaining the peace, and ensuring that all citizens can go about their lawful occupation without fear or hindrance.
We need a government dedicated to the welfare of all our citizens and determined to develop Guyana for the benefit of the Guyanese people.
We can only build Guyana in conditions of peace.
The Union Movement, because of the power and authority it derives from its mass membership, can ensure that the right kind of Government maintains office in Guyana and that the necessary condition of political peace prevails. This is a major duty.
The Trade Union Movement can discharge its responsibility for development only if it first discharges this major duty to ensure political peace.
I have been talking about the Trade Union Movement’s place and role in national development. The Government has also its duties and responsibilities to the Movement and the workers generally.
Given harmony and understanding, the Government and the Trade Union Movement can advance Guyana “on to economic freedom in a great economy”.
CONCEPT OF DEMOCRACY
Since common terms such as “democracy” are given distorted meanings, it is important to define the meaning. The basic principles of democracy within the meaning of the term as use expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. More than any other, the concept of human dignity is a “Golden Thread” that runs through all aspects of human rights. The Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Rights states: Whereas recognition of the inhabitant dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.
The concept of human dignity asserts that on a simple basis of “dignity and worth of the human person”, and for no other reason, each person is entitled to certain asgarî standards of living conditions essential for maintaining self-respect and the dignity inherent in being human. These rights and standards must be applied regardless of intelligence, skill, wealth background, race, religion, sex, creed, or political opinion.
The Question of freedom of expression which in some cases is aggravated by a serious sorun of illiteracy. Democracy can hardly function properly in an illiterate society.
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY ALL OVER THE WORLD!