Dear Editor,
What is the purpose of the Labour Day workers march?
There are so many issues affecting workers in all sectors and we would have thought that the Labour Day march was the opportune time for workers and their unions to publicly highlight the issues affecting them and to make demands on the government and private sector.
Each year, for quite a few years now, what we’ve seen is what we refer to as semi- mashramani without floats: liquor drinking, loud music and gyrating including back ball. How can one seriously be trying to address issues in this manner?
This year’s march was most upsetting to us. As the marchers passed us on Regent and Cummings St, where we were having our usual Labour Day picketing exercise, members of the Guyana Teachers Union contingent were gyrating to the song “Anyway Sanco want am”, while those in the Ministry of Health contingent including nurses in uniform were gyrating to the famous Soca” Ah Duckin it”, And if that was not enough, some of the marchers verbally attacked us for standing quietly highlighting our issues, while some were calling on us to join the march. We don’t know if the ones who were hurling unpleasant remarks at us felt that we were picketing against them. That was not the case. All we were doing was presenting the case of domestic workers (a sector of workers who are marginalized even after Guyana’s government ratified the ILO Convention 189) to other sectors of workers, union representatives and government Ministers.
So we ask again – what is the purpose of the Labour Day march? There are countless issues with the education system, from salaries to overcrowded classrooms, to lack of text books, to too little time allotted to teach a subject – these are just some of the problems we are told about at PTA when we complain about the state of our children’s education.
What about the issues affecting workers in the health sector? Is it that nothing is affecting them?
Is it that we in Red Thread have the wrong idea of what this event is supposed to be about?
By the next May Day march, we challenge each union to ensure that shop stewards are active; the unions must become representative bodies that are in touch with even the smallest units of members. Workers must meet, talk about issues and identify the things they want to take action on and the action they will take.
How much education about their rights are workers engaged in?
May Day March 2018 should be a sober one, celebrating the workers’ victories and talking about other issues they must organize around, including the accountability of union leaders.
Yours faithfully,
Joy Marcus, Wintress White
and Halima Khan
For Red Thread
Susan Collymore
For Grass roots Women Across Race
