Last week’s announcement that vendors in the city’s municipal markets are to become unionized is an indication that working people in Guyana are beginning to bestir themselves against tendencies by institutions in authority to marginalize them and deny them their rights, General Secretary of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) Lincoln Lewis has said.
“I believe that the creation of a union for vendors at this time points to the fact that the vendors are faced with challenges to their livelihoods, serious ones and that they believe that a collective, organized approach to solving those problems is necessary at this time,” Lewis told Stabroek Business.
And the veteran trade unionist told this newspaper that he believed the creation of a union was a shot in the arm for the trade union movement as a whole. “Frankly, the more we can expand unionized labour across the country the more secure the entire labour force will be,” Lewis said, adding that the GTUC would “unhesitatingly welcome” the new union to its fold. “Frankly, I hope that they can unionize vendors across the country,” Lewis added.
