Dear Editor,
When a comrade of the calibre of Komal Chand dies, it’s like losing a part of your body that is irreplaceable.
That body symbolizes the PPP to which all its members and supporters belong, with all having transport and ownership of it.
Komal Chand was an integral part of that extraordinary body. He was one of the stronger and reliable links of the human chain that kept the party connected with his community, the party’s arms such as the Progressive Youth Organisation (PYO) and the Women’s Progressive Organisation (WPO), as well as with fraternal organizations such as the Guyana Rice Producers Association (GRPA), the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) and the Guyana Agricultural Producers Association (GAPA).
Komal Chand helped build, consolidate, strengthen and expand the influence of these organizations.
At the political level, there is not a single policy issue of national and international importance that Komal did not help formulate while serving in the Central and Executive Committee of the PPP.
Many were disappointed when Komal was not re-elected to the Executive Committee following the last party congress. We lost a valuable voice in that august policy making body.
Komal distinguished himself, on his return from studies in the USSR, when he was assigned responsibilities at GAWU in the early 1970’s.
Together with stalwarts such as Ram Karan, Maccie Hamid, Philomena ‘Fireball’ Shury, Shree Chand and Harry Lall, Komal played an exemplary role as a young, vibrant trade unionist.
As trade union cadre, Komal was involved in GAWU’s struggle for recognition as the bargaining agent for sugar workers in field and factory.
In a poll to determine which union enjoyed the confidence and support of cane cutters and factory workers, GAWU trounced the Manpower Citizens Association (MPCA), a company union headed by Richard Ishmael.
Komal fought against, and defeated attempts by the Burnham dictatorship to divide the sugar workers by creating a parallel union called the Union of Allied and Agricultural Workers headed by Seelo Baichan, a known PNC supporter.
In a 135-day sugar workers strike of 1977, which saw the recruitment of over 6,000 scabs and the enactment of Part 11 of the National Security Act which provided for detention without trial and without bail, Komal was in the forefront of that struggle and efforts to provide sugar workers with much needed strike relief.
Komal was in the rumble and tumble of a five-week strike by bauxite workers in July- August 1979.
His union, along with the Clerical and Commercial Workers Union (CCWU), University of Guyana Staff Association (UGSA) and the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE), created a unity at the industrial level not seen since the 1945-55 period.
Ever since those heady days and with the passing of many of his colleagues Komal Chand mastered the art of successful negotiations with GuySuCo to wrest from the corporation greater benefits for sugar workers.
We called him the Kissinger of GAWU-GuySuCo negotiations. He did learn a lot from union veterans and negotiators like Cheddi Jagan, Boysie Ram Karan, Harry Lall and Maccie Hamid.
Komal featured prominently in the creation of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG) which emerged during the difficult days of the Burnham dictatorship.
Throughout his association with the sugar industry Komal never abandoned the sugar workers for opportunistic reasons nor material benefits. Allegations of corruption were never leveled against him.
During the PPP/C’s tenure in office Komal was confronted with the difficult
task of balancing the interests of government with the interests of his union and its members.
At times these interests clashed and seemed irreconcilable. But through a process of consultation, cooperation and communication but above all, the recognition of mutual interests, these matters were amicably resolved.
If there were two peculiar features of trade unionism in Guyana that Komal understood was the nuanced interconnection and interaction between the industrial and the political struggles. Also, he was very conscious of the fact that because of the social and ethnic composition of the union’s membership he had to ensure that the political and ideological orientation of the union must at all times be labour oriented and not perceived by its members as a tool to be used willy-nilly by a political party.
Komal Chand lived to see how the APNU+AFC’s reckless, insensitive destructive approach to the sugar industry left thousands of sugar workers jobless and without bread on their table. He fought this shortsighted policy to the bitter end, yet he remained optimistic about the confidence of the sugar workers in their union.
And so was Komal the fighter and believer, ever since I met him for the first time at Freedom House in the late 1960’s as he was preparing to travel to the USSR. He invited me to accompany him to the then Atkinson International Airport to see him board the BOAC airplane on his long journey to Moscow via London.
Our friendship grew over the years. I shall miss him and his erudite and strong working class, ideologically profound contributions at meetings of our Central Committee.
He has left a lasting legacy to the Union he once led and the trade union movement of our country.
Yours faithfully,
Clement J. Rohee
