Introduction
To be brutally frank upfront, without 1) strong independent trade unions pushing for national real minimum wage increases, the payment of living wages and the provision of substantial job programmes 2) a considerable strengthening of class-based ideology and politics among political actors and worker representatives 3) rising public awareness and consciousness (fuelled by public advocacy arising from evidence- based analyses), the struggle against grinding inequality and poverty in Guyana is as good as lost. The purpose of today’s column is to present the case in support of these blunt propositions.
Table 1 displays key data illustrating the above propositions. Before examining these readers are cautioned that the time series displayed in this Table covers 2006-2013 only
