Dear Editor,
I thank Mr Mohammed Akeel for letting the public know “the facts” of the labour dispute in the bauxite industry (‘It is the bauxite union which walked away from an agreement’ SN, January 28). He needlessly justified his writing by my getting “involved” (‘Unions should defend workers’ right to a living wage regardless of the party they support’ SN, January 1). My respect to him too for his pains.
I find his logic very creative. My letter said, “I saw first a WPA statement circulated by email.” I was referring to a press release issued by the WPA and emailed out. I do not know whether it was published in the Guyana press. Mr Akeel shades my remark somewhat and from there says, “Maybe the union’s actions were more political than industrial.” I wonder if he realizes that he may be accusing the union because of what a political party decided to do, that is defend in a press release a union it claimed was threatened. I hope we do not now have a ‘solidarity police’ to counter the many non-governmental avenues for expression.
Can it be that some unions may indeed be operating under deep official suspicion of being political? It can also be assumed that the sanctions can follow the suspicion. I thought that the last thing a person trained in trade union rights would do was to make that kind of accusation. I am assuming that without my letter he would not even harbour such a thought, so he used it to justify his accusation. We may soon have a new crime, ‘enemy of the industry.’
For its own reasons GAWU also called a strike in defence of its members at a time when the industry was in serious problems.
Mr Akeel says he has given the facts. Learning from him and borrowing his words, I ask, if what he has written is correct, then is he saying that there was no case of Rusal employees being pressured by company officials behind closed doors to sign a petition? There were such allegations in the press, repeated in my letter. Mr Akeel in giving the facts has not challenged them.
Yours faithfully,
Eusi Kwayana
