RIDING ROUGHSHOD OVER THE WORKING CLASS
July 28, 2015 | By KNews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source
Forty-two persons from the One Laptop per Family (OLPF) project have been sent packing by the APNU+AFC government. They have effectively been put on the breadline.
Some of them will now lose their homes. Some of them will not be able to meet their other commitments. Others will not know from whence their next paycheck is coming.
The APNU+AFC government cannot be oblivious to these concerns. It was APNU+AFC which on the election trail had said that there were no jobs for young people. Yet they are the ones who are engaging in dismissals.
The new government is on a rampage. It is sending more persons left, right and center. It is being cheered on by those who feel that persons who worked with the former administration should be punished with dismissal.
I wonder what the AFC has to say in relation to the sending home of so many workers, most of whom are young people. Is the AFC in support of the dismissals of these persons? Why could these persons not have been placed elsewhere in the public service? Or were they being simply cleared so that when the project is redesigned, they can be replaced by party hacks?
The Guyana Trade Union Congress, which once accused the PPP/C government of practicing economic genocide, is strangely silent in the face of this assault on workers. These workers are not public servants. But should the Guyana Public Service Union not say something also about these mass dismissals that are taking place?
There are complaints about a slowdown in business. But what about the survival of these forty-two workers? How are they going to survive? The loss of income surely will mean that they will be unable for some time to enjoy the same purchasing power that they did. This will further aggravate the downturn in business activity.
What was the wrong that these workers did? They were not accused of being political appointees and therefore, subject to be replaced by other favored underlings from the ruling coalition. They were working for a project which the present government had never supported. But is this reason enough to send them home? It is not and certainly this has not been the reason given for them being sent home.
The reason given is that they have not been doing any work and were only putting on a pappy- show when a big one visited their office.
If employees do not have work to do, who is to blame? You cannot blame the workers for not having work to do. You have to blame the employer for not finding work for them to do. Yet, the workers are being accused of not having work and therefore they were relieved of their duties.
If within close to three months the government could not find work for these employees, you cannot blame the employees, you have to blame the government. It is the government which did not find work for these employees which should have been sent packing. Yet these poor souls are being put on the breadline through no fault of theirs.
It is possible that the government plans to scrap the OLPF programme. The government would have known this a long time ago because it was never in agreement with the OLPF. APNU had called for one laptop per teacher. The government therefore had to know that it would have been closing this unit. So why did it wait so long? And why did it not use the time since May 11, 2015 to try to find alternative employment for these workers.
Surely the new government will be pursuing its own e-governance programme. So why could these forty- two workers, who are now left penniless, not have been absorbed into that programme?
The government is riding roughshod over the working class. It is trampling the working class. It is engaging in mass dismissals. It is dismissing mainly young people.
At the same time, retired persons and party supporters are being employed. How can this be fair?
And the AFC will sit there and not mumble a word of protest.
The workers should protest their dismissals. They have to take action because no one else is going to come to their rescue.