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Children of members of the CCWU who were awarded bursaries based on their performance at the last sitting of the Secondary School Entrance Examinations with the union’s President Roy Hughes (seventh from right) and other executives of the union following the opening of the CCWU’s Sixth Biennial Conference held at the Umana Yana, Kingston on Saturday. The top student, Heeraman Naipaul, who wrote the SSEE at the Uitvlugt Primary (eighth from right) gained 521 marks and will attend President’s College.
Urging the immediate resumption of dialogue between the government and the major opposition, he said that lessons where death and destruction paved the way for dialogue and a glimpse at progress, such as occurred in recent times in Suriname, Venezuela and Colombia ought not to be learned anew by each succeeding generation.
Welcoming the efforts of the General Secretary of the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL), George De Peana, at fence mending in the splintered labour movement in Guyana. He said that workers could never derive the benefits envisaged by our predecessors in an environment of trade union disunity. The leaders of labour, he said, now have a grand opportunity to set the pace for national unity by setting an example for political leaders to follow.
Commenting on the crime situation, he said that it could only be resolved through a process that must involve the major political powers in the country.
“We have come face to face with the reality that our leaders are no longer leaders if they fail to give up a little personal or partisan ground so that an entire nation might be saved the perils that beset us.”
Noting the PNC/R’s offer to take part in a consensus on crime and welcoming this as a very positive development in the national interest, Hughes said the CCWU looked forward to much more than lip service and hoped that the social partners would lend to the process, their earnest participation and support.
He mentioned also the link between crime and poverty, which has been exacerbated by the fallout from the September 11 terrorist attack on the US last year, with Guyanese in the US who traditionally gave some measure of support to relatives at home finding it more difficult to do so now.
The frustrations and grievous plight of the nation’s poor is further compounded by the high rate of unemployment and a real sense of hopelessness among the youth. The authorities must address these matters systematically and comprehensively, he said.
In relation to industrial relations, he said that management/labour relations had been on the decline in both the private and public sectors. The CCWU was unable to conclude collective agreements with state agencies for this year and even for last year, despite having submitted proposals well in advance.
He said that free collective bargaining did not exist among state entities because of the requirement imposed by the Ministry of Finance, through which state managers have been stripped of the authority to negotiate with unions and make concrete decisions.
The CCWU, he said, viewed this as a violation of ILO Convention #98, which outlines the right to organise and collective bargaining. Some private sector employers have opted not to respond to proposals, while some have stated that they were offering no increases for the year 2002. This approach, he said, could only lead to frustration and then confrontation.
Addressing HIV and AIDS, he called for drastic action to save the labour force, noting that a tragedy of enormous consequences and economic impact, as devastating as a country ravished by prolonged war was brewing.
Statistics reveal that in Guyana, some 30,000 people are living with HIV and AIDS representing a significant proportion of the working population. He said there was a clear case for more spending on AIDS education at every level of the education system and at places of worship.