Several months ago in an interview with this newspaper, General Secretary of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), Lincoln Lewis, expressed concern that business houses had become so preoccupied with profits, they were increasingly unmindful of matters that have to do with the welfare of their employees.
Mr Lewis’ concerns appeared to be with matters relating to conditions of work including hours of work, remuneration and safety and health. It appeared that while he was not advocating that businesses cease to focus on profits – since that would obviously have implications for their ability to provide for workers’ welfare – he was suggesting that they pay more attention to the concerns of their employees.
If employee welfare were judged purely on the physical conditions of work at some private sector factories and other places of business, then Mr Lewis has called it correctly.
The state of course is by no means a paragon of virtue as far as conditions of work are concerned. Apart from the fact that conditions of work at some public sector workplaces leave much to be desired, the Ministry of Labour’s capacity to carry out its health and safety functions effectively has also long been called into question.
Mr Lewis must surely know too that the labour movement itself must shoulder much of the responsibility for the current state of affairs as far as worker welfare is concerned. Here, it has been a matter of less than effective trade union leadership. Over the last quarter of a century or more the labour movement has clearly lost the battle to secure greater representation for private sector workers and whatever else the labour movement may wish to say that failure has been a function of serious limitations on its part.
Labour’s failure to make any real inroads into the private sector as far as unionization is concerned over the past 25 years has been, by and large, a function of its failure to sell itself to workers. While all private sector entities have not been models as far as the quality of treatment meted out to workers is concerned, some have managed to successfully outflank trade unions by providing the kinds of attractive in-house perks that have made the trade unions appear quite unnecessary.
In the meanwhile – and the records will no doubt illustrate this – the trade unions have not been able to do much more than retain their already modest bargaining units or else watch those decline as confidence in whatever it is that labour has to offer continually dwindles. Perhaps more significantly, the trade union movement has, over the period in question, become quite adept at self-destruction, falling prey in some instances to political blandishments that have nothing to do with protecting the interests of workers.
So that while we accept that Mr Lewis’ concern regarding the indifference of some private sector employers to the conditions of work of their employees is, in many instances, a matter of serious concern, the question that arises and, frankly, one which the labour movement should seek to answer has to do with just what trade unions are prepared to do to address the problem.
