GUYANA | If We're Good Enough to Be Copied, We're Good Enough to Sit at the Table Says Lincoln Lewis

Guyana's labour leader draws a battle line — the PPP cannot keep stealing workers' ideas while locking labour out of the room where decisions are made.

By Lincoln Lewis  |  WiredJa Contributor

There is something deeply insulting — and politically revealing — about a government that quietly mines your ideas, implements your proposals, and then locks you out of the room where decisions are made. That is precisely what Guyana's Trades Union Congress has endured under successive People's Progressive Party administrations. And enough, frankly, is enough.

Let us speak plainly. Before oil revenues began flowing into Guyana's national coffers, it was the GTUC that had already mapped a path forward. In 2019, building on Professor Clive Thomas's 2018 proposal that oil revenues be converted into direct cash grants for ordinary Guyanese, we expanded that vision into a comprehensive 19-point agenda — a blueprint touching healthcare, education, environment, housing, and technical training.

That document was formally submitted to both President David Granger and then-Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo. It was not a whisper campaign or a back-room suggestion. It was a serious national proposal from the legitimate representatives of Guyana's workers.

"Today, you can compare that agenda item by item with what the PPP is implementing. The parallels are unmistakable — yet labour sits nowhere at the table."

Today, you can compare that agenda item by item with what the PPP is implementing. The parallels are unmistakable. Free education, investment in the University of Guyana, upgrades to health centres, technical institutes to equip Guyanese for the oil economy — the fingerprints of labour's vision are all over the government's programme. Yet labour sits nowhere at the table. Not in consultation. Not in credit. Not in collaboration.

A HABIT OF GOVERNANCE

This is not a new pattern. It is a habit of governance the PPP has long perfected. When Desmond Hoyte's Economic Recovery Programme rescued Guyana's economy from collapse, the PPP denounced it in opposition. Then they inherited its benefits in government and claimed the credit.

When the GTUC submitted a detailed development plan for Loo Creek on the Linden-Soesdyke Highway — complete with housing, agriculture, energy generation, and an industrial estate — the land was never granted to labour. It went to a PPP ally. Today, strikingly similar concepts are being pursued along that very highway.

The pattern extends even to education. Karen Abrams returned home and built a STEM infrastructure that was genuinely pioneering. When President Irfaan Ali recently announced a US$100 million STEM arrangement with ExxonMobil, her name was not mentioned. The architect was erased while the blueprint was adopted.

EXCLUSION AS STRATEGY

Taken together, these episodes reveal a governing philosophy that is not merely ungrateful — it is strategically exclusionary. By shutting out the creators of these ideas, the PPP ensures that implementation remains under its political control, credit remains with the party, and the communities those ideas were designed to empower remain dependent rather than empowered.

But here is what that strategy misses: ideas are most powerful in the hands of those who conceived them. The GTUC's 19-point agenda was not produced in a vacuum — it emerged from deep understanding of workers' conditions, from years of advocacy, from a genuine investment in Guyana's future.

When the architects are excluded, implementation suffers. What could be transformative becomes diluted, politicised, and uneven.

A CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATION

Guyana's oil wealth belongs to all Guyanese — not to the PPP. Article 13 of the Constitution of Guyana demands inclusionary democracy. That is not a courtesy to be extended when convenient. It is a constitutional obligation.

If our ideas are good enough to shape national policy, then we are good enough to help shape its implementation. Labour will not be silent while its intellectual contributions are harvested and its voice suppressed. We are demanding — firmly and without apology — our rightful seat at the table.

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Lincoln Lewis is General Secretary of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC).