On January 11, 2019, the centennial anniversary of the British Guiana Labour Union (BGLU), now the Guyana Labour Union (GLU), was observed. The significant anniversary represented not only the birthing of that Union but the foundation of the Trade Union movement among the then colonies of Great Britian. It was a momentous achievement recognising the circumstances that prevailed at that time.
Indeed, the bravery of Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow, now deemed the Father of Trade Unionism, cannot escape our attention especially recognising the significant pressures that he would have faced at that time. History records that Crichlow came to wide public prominence in this country during the 1905 waterfront strikes and a similar strike in 1906 followed by strikes in the sugar industry. These strikes were for improvements in wages and conditions of toil. But his most remarkable struggle in that era prior to the formation of the BGLU and which was eventually victorious was that to secure the 8 hour working day for his colleagues. The ruling hierarchy gave the three signatories to that request three days to withdraw it. Two did, but the third – Critchlow – convinced that this was a basic right of the workers refused to withdraw. He was promptly sacked from his employment with Bookers and could not obtain employment elsewhere since the arm of Booker, which then virtually owned British Guiana, was like the long arm of the law.
In the early 1900s, the colony had also been facing continuous deterioration of the already inadequate social infrastructure. The living conditions in Georgetown were described as deplorable with many residents dwelling in shantytowns with inadequate potable water supply, little or no drainage and garbage disposal. Diseases were rampant and infant mortality rates were high while life expectancy was low. It was within these conditions of rapidly decaying economic and social circumstances, that trade unionism in British Guiana emerged. At an address to the World Trade Union Conference in 1945, Critchlow detailed the workers’ woes and demands in the 1905 strike.
“Our working hours were 10½ . The system of a quarter day existed. There was no overtime for night work. We asked the employers to change these conditions. The reply was that we must take them or go. I organized a strike on the waterfront in December, 1905. Our aims were for an increase of pay, which was very low. Truckers (called boys although adult men) made two shillings a day. They could scarcely get a whole day’s work, taking cargo to the barn.
There was no trade union, and the employers refused. So I got the working men, boys together, and they agreed that when there were six boats in the harbour they must strike. A great thing and at that time I did not know that all the estates in the country followed us and struck on account of low wages.”
Undaunted by these difficulties, Critchlow lost no time in mobilizing support for his campaign. It was perhaps a blessing in disguise since he thereafter devoted his energies towards the establishment of an organized body to fight for an eight hour workday. Later, a demonstration to Government House was organized and following which the British Guiana Labour Union was founded primarily at Critchlow’s instance on January 11, 1919.It became the first registered Trade Union in the British Colonial Empire on January 11, 1922. His efforts won for waterfront and other workers the 8 hour working day.
Critchlow’s struggles and those of the first Trade Union established here were not confined merely to wages and shorter hours of work. They embraced a much wider field. Among the matters agitated for were the right to vote in national elections, better education for the offspring of the masses, improved health services, rent restriction, alleviation from the exploitation of the Sugar Producers, better housing, campaigns against unemployment, demands for old age pensions, the ending of racial discrimination and the furtherance of the rights of women.
In this connection, Critchlow was branded a socialist by the authorities. On his return from Russia in 1932 he was viciously attacked by the local press and branded a red, a communist and a Boleshevik. There can be little doubt that he was impressed and inspired by what he saw in Russia, based on the glowing accounts of what he disclosed including the translation of the State power to the workersand their struggles to build socialism. One of the newspapers said “[w]e are very interested in the account Mr. Critchlow brought back to the West Indies of his activities in the Soviet Union. We believe all he said of his experiences and wish to assure him that if and when it suits him we will accommodate him in a cell”.
Critchlow was undeterred by these fulminations. His struggles and his course of conduct were formulated by his practical groundings in Socialist perspective. In the preface to the first and early Rules of the British Guiana Labour Union it is posited that workers will fight their battles both on political and ordinary trade union lines, and a recognition that separate political parties with programmes in harmony with the trade union and the working class should have the support of the former. The preface noted that apart from the Union prosecuting the essential characteristics of seeking to adjust wages, working hours and other conditions of work; it will help on the realization of a collectivist State. More particularly, the Union undertook to press for the nationalization of land and public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
Trade unionism has been an important pillar in Guyana’s evolution, and in workers’ and citizens’ development. The workers’ struggles have achieved for this nation conditions of work such as minimum wage, an eight-hour work day, holiday with pay, overtime pay, sick leave, the Workman’s Compensation Act, Labour Laws, Landlord and Tenant Act, National Insurance and Social Security, Occupational Safety and Health, free education and free health care, various rights and amenities that have improved living standards of people.
At the social level, the trade unions were involved in turn-key housing development such as obtained in TucVille in Georgetown, TucBer in New Amsterdam, Wisroc in Linden, and the Kwakwani Housing Scheme in Upper Rio Berbice. The ‘Tuc’ in the schemes’ names means the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which spearheaded their conceptualization and construction. The TUC also played a role in education, as is evident in the Critchlow Labour College and the Guyana Industrial Training Centre (GITC), which are brainchildren of the TUC.
On the political front, the trade union movement started the mass-based struggle for internal self-government. In this almost 53rd year of Guyana’s Independence, it need not be forgotten that, 93 years ago (1926), the Caribbean Labour leaders — which included Critchlow — congregated here to conceptualise and develop a strategy for self-government, which included the one-man-one-vote concept that would have set in place a train of events that culminated in independence in the Caribbean, starting in the 1960s.
If truth be told, nothing was ever willingly given to workers by employers; workers have always had to fight for what they received. Other employers, to be competitive, have incorporated the negotiated benefits from unionised workplaces into their conditions of employment.
The trade union, from inception, has been a pressure group both at the work place and in the wider society. While the movement negotiates better wages and working conditions, it has extended its role to include workers’ welfare in the wider community. This is probably better understood through the work of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which was also established in 1919 and has conventions impacting on the workers’ wellbeing both in and out of work. These conventions touch the workers’ social, economic, cultural and political lives.
If Guyana is to earn and maintain respect and credibility in the international arena as a member of the United Nations, the ILO, and international financial institutions whose development premises include respecting individual rights and freedoms, the trade union movement must be allowed to occupy its rightful place in our industrial relations’ system and nation’s body politic. Arguably, the framers of the Guyana Constitution recognised this — as is evident in articles that refer to this institution — and have assigned specific roles to the trade union movement.
