GAWU’s tribute to Janet Jagan

POLITICAL ICON, MATRIARCH, PATRIOT – these are among the encomiums and descriptions showered on the late Janet Jagan O.E. who passed away on Saturday morning last.

The Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), whose patron and inspiration was her late husband Dr Cheddi Jagan, offers condolences to the children, relatives and extended family, the PPP – and indeed the Guyanese nation – on the demise of this indomitable but charming champion of the working class, Janet Jagan.

Various components of the Guyanese nation and society will be offering and have paid their tributes in many ways, as befits one whose dedicated public life was composed of many varied facets.

It is perhaps appropriate, if not natural, for GAWU to recall comrade Janet’s heroic struggles on behalf of the working-class for their industrial, labour rights, even as that battle was part and parcel of the larger anti-colonial struggle.

Janet Jagan toiled alongside the Father of Guyanese Trade Unionism, Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow. She joined Dr J. P. Lachmansingh and Jane Phillips – Gay among other during the Enmore Martyrs strike and its after-math. From the pre-massacre Soup Kitchen to the boycott of the first post-shooting Commission of Enquiry, then the positive recommendations of the later Venn Commission, Janet Jagan was tireless in her struggle for sugar-worker and working-class rights and welfare.

Recalling too that when Mrs Jagan, as a People’s Progressive Party (PPP) founding-stalwart, was banned from Trinidad and Tobago, the then Trade Union Council (TUC) was quick to protest and offer solidarity, GAWU iterates the then camaraderie and solidarity between the early PPP and the then TUC. Cde Janet Jagan saw no distinction amongst the working-class representatives, except from time to time, the rabid anti-worker company – friendly types. Also it was under her watch as Minister of Labour that Rupert Tello’s Motion to have the First of May become May Day/Labour Day, became law in 1958.

For more than six decades, Janet partnered her husband Cheddi Jagan and her Party in the continuous struggle for Guyana’s independence, the return to democracy and prosperity. She was a simple citizen, robust trade unionist, politician, law-maker, Minister, First Lady, Prime Minister and President.

Guyana was her home and Guyanese her people. As City Councillor, she served the capital as she did the Essequibo Coast as Legislator; nurses benefitted from her advocacy and her love for children is legendary.

Her special attention to sugar-workers was inspiring to GAWU during its struggle for recognition; the various strikes made necessary and generally, as counsellor to those woman and wives whose other halves suffered in various ways as sugar producers.

GAWU’s Women Forum will soon convene to consider what form of work the Union can establish, in the spirit and tradition of our first heroine Kowsilla, to perpetuate the memory, life and work of this working -class champion.

Long Live the Spirit of Comrade Janet Jagan!