09) GUYANESE SOLIDARITY WITH CANADIAN SEAMEN

(The following article is from the August 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

Labour History by Norman Faria

It is April 1949. The night is thick with darkness as a group of Political Affairs Committee (PAC) members and supporters climb into a small rowboat on the east bank of the Demerara River in Guyana near where the Pegasus Hotel is today. They row towards one of the several freighters anchored in mid stream off the Georgetown docks. It is the Canadian cargo vessel the SUNAVIS, then in Guyana to load ore for Canadian aluminum making plants.

     In the bottom of the rowboat, carefully wrapped in crocus bags and canvas, is a quantity of food, including freshly baked bread, some ground provisions, salt fish, chicken and rice. Perhaps a bottle or two of good Guyanese rum. It is all destined for the striking Canadian seamen on board the 10,000 tonne ship.

     In the boat are two of the PAC leaders, young Janet and Cheddi Jagan. Every now and again, as Mrs. Jagan related to this writer in an interview in the 1980s, those on board the small boat would duck down as the searchlight beams from the ship's owners security personnel swept across the anchorage.

     The Guyanese people and their leaders were showing their solidarity with the seamen, then part of a just international strike organised by the progressive Canadian Seamen's Union (CSU) trade union. It affected the whole Canadian-flagged merchant marine fleet, then the fourth largest in the world, wherever they were moored. Ships were tied up in England, South Africa and Cuba.

     Aside from the extraordinary (the PAC central committee must have diverted logistical resources from areas of work) practical assistance, the solidarity action undoubtedly stemmed from two main, but connected, understandings.

     One was the need to defend democratic peoples' organisations, regardless of where they were in the world. Not only were the CSU and like-minded unions worldwide fighting to deepen the already beneficial achievements for their members.There was also an ideological struggle. It was the "Cold War" period at the end of the World War II. Company unions and others were started to undermine "red-led" unions, as the established media described progressive, democratically run trade unions.

     It was not that these company unions and other bodies such as groupings within the American Federation of Labour (AFL) could provide better representation and rank and file democracy than the "red-led" unions. The CSU, for example had the support of the majority of Canadian seamen. These were among the poorest sections of the Canadian working class (many went to sea in their early teens during this period). The Canadian Encyclopedia described the CSU as "effective, well supported". It had won significant benefits for the workers within an archaic exploitative sector with its low wages, long hours and poor working conditions, as reliable history accounts describe the conjuncture.

     The leaders of the PAC, which would within a year evolve into the People's Progressive Party (PPP), took all of this into account. Another important reason for the solidarity was that the CSU stood for democratic traits which those in the PAC were themselves striving to establish for the Guyanese people: multiracial democracy and unity.

     According to the book, Against the tide: The story of the Canadian Seamen's Union, by Jim Green (Progress Publishers, 1986), the CSU was formed in 1936. Waterfront unions had merged with it. Among its members were Japanese immigrant fishermen who were based at ports in the Canadian western seaboard province of British Columbia. It was a time when Asiatic people in Canada were still being discriminated against, though as Canadian democracy deepened this would change. In 1949, at the time of the CSU strike, the apartheid system had been institutionalised. But the CSU insisted that any ships being manned by its members would have black and white crews while visiting South Africa.

     Looking at photos of crews in Green's well researched book, there are clearly CSU crew members with African and Hispanic features. These were probably from the Caribbean countries including Cuba where Canadian shipping lines like Saguenay called. In fairness, part of the contracts signed by the shipping firms for hauling cargoes in the circum-Caribbean region and Guyana was the stipulation that a certain percentage of local crew be hired. This tradition was in existence up until the mid 1960s when this writer signed on as a deckhand with other Caribbean seamen on the German-owned and largely crewed freighter BRUNSLAND which was among of Geest Line ships carrying bananas from eastern Caribbean islands to England.

     In his book The West on Trial, Dr. Jagan explained that the support action with the Canadian seamen had been organised "as a matter of principle".

     He gave more details: "Our job was to take care of the men - not an easy task; of the 70 men involved, nearly half were ashore and had to be fed and lodged... The major problem was to feed the men on the ship. This was quite a problem as the shipping company's security guards had blockaded the harbour front..."

     In a 2001 article found on her website, Janet Jagan wrote: "I remember the period well... It was a heady period and the seaman were strong and courageous men, loyal to their union. We (in the PAC) learned a lot from them."

     According to Green's book, warrants were issued by the colonial authorities for the arrest of the SUNAVIS crew. But the strikers also got the backing of the British Guiana and West Indies Federated Seamen's Union and well as the British Guiana Trades Union Council.

     Green argues that a just concluded strike by unionised sugar workers at Plantation Enmore on shore also helped the seamen. When the police went out to the ship and met resistance, the colonial  Governor, anxious to avoid more bloodshed, told the police to let the Canadians be.

      When the TUC withdrew its support in May, the seamen became more isolated. They were put in jail for 16 days after giving themselves up. Legal representation had been organised by PAC. After attending a party thrown in their honour by Cheddi Jagan, they were flown back to Canada.

     Due partly to rising Cold War hysteria in the early 1950s, the CSU went under soon after the strike. The union's 12,000 membership base was undermined by a quasi-company union, the Seafarers International Union which was affiliated to the AFL. In a few years the Canadian merchant marine fleet was sold off leading to much unemployment. The legacy of the CSU's seminal work however continued with members and leaders going into other labour bodies and peoples' organisations.

     The solidarity action by the fledgling democracy and anti-colonial driven PAC, which soon evolved into one of the Hemisphere's longest established and representative political parties, should not of course be looked at in isolation. It should be placed in context along with other internationalist and multi- racial and religious actions and campaigns including those in support of liberation struggles in Southern Africa. The historic show of support by Guyanese people of all races for Canadian seamen nearly 60 years ago is part of our wider collective memory. It is a memory we need sometimes to refer to as we reflect on the roots of Guyana's present striving and healthy democracy.

     (Norman Faria is Guyana's Honourary Consul in Barbados)