Sugar strikers face troops
Socialist Press1977 1977-11-30Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 2 →
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For more than three months Guyanese sugar workers have been on strike demanding back pay of £50 which is owed to them under a profit sharing scheme. But the main issue of the strike has now become that of scab labour.
The 'socialist' government of Forbes Burnham reacted to the workers' demands by mobilising 6,000 troops and civil servants to scab on the striking sugar workers.
The agricultural workers union is demanding the withdrawal of the scabs before they will negotiate.
The strikers have been supported by oil workers in Trinidad who have refused to deliver oil to Guyana until Burnham withdraws the scabs.
Burnham shows no sign of budging, but seems determined to crush independent trade unionism altogether.
This position fits in with the rightward shift in his foreign policy. In recent months he has been wooing the Carter administration, though only a few months ago he was publicly accusing the CIA of trying to overthrow him.
At present the 'opposition' led by Cheddi Jagan, which last year was prepared to enter a coalition government with Burnham, has been opportunistically taking advantage of his rightward shift.
Jagan, however, has shown conclusively in the past that he is not prepared to lead an independent struggle of the working class.
The Guyanese working class must reject the sham 'socialist' alternatives offered thath tha maiar martiac