Mr. Komal Chand has been contributing to the country’s Agriculture Sector for decades, since before his rise to Politics and Trade Unionism. He told this magazine, “Before I got into sugar and became a part of the sugar union in the 1970’s as a young man, I have always been in Agriculture. I was always on the workers side ensuring that everything is good with them in their respective fields; be it rice,
sugar or whatever. I am grounded in Agriculture.” Mr. Chand currently serves as President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) and is also a Member of Parliament for the People’s Progressive Party Civic shadowing Agriculture along with his colleague Dharamkumar Seeraj.
The Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU) is the largest trade union in Guyana and in the Caribbean. It was founded in 1946 as the Guiana Industrial Workers’ Union. After failing in the 1950s, it was reformed as the Guyana Sugar Workers’ Union in 1961 but changed its name to
Guyana Agricultural Workers’ Union in 1962 before becoming GAWU later that decade. Mr. Chand started in GAWU as an Organising Secretary and moved through the ranks to General
Secretary and eventually President. It was during his tenure at the helm that GAWU’s membership spread far and wide to include workers in the garment, lumber and rice industries, fisheries, the Demerara Harbour Bridge, among others. Some functions, in a nutshell, would be to first
represent workers’ interests with a view to ensuring their rights and benefits are expected. Secondly, to engage the employer in collective bargaining to improve wages, benefits and conditions of work,
and thirdly, to engage government towards the improvement of the rights of workers generally.
Mr. Chand, now 73, told this publication that his entire working life has been in the Agriculture
Sector, but because of the impact sugar had on the country’s economy, he felt he could have
made a contribution there. “I have been associated with sugar and sugar workers’ issues since 1975. As
you know, sugar has been and remains an important part of our economy and this has dominated
Agriculture for decades in this country. Sugar is the reason for our people remaining on the coastline.
It is responsible for our Agriculture,” he pointed out. Mr. Chand has been married for more than three decades and is the father of three children, all of whom he described as young professionals. He said that his success in the Agriculture Sector in this country is due to the support of his family, since they stood by him despite sometimes being out of the home for most of the day or sometimes being away for days. “Fortunately for me, my wife is the daughter of a sugar worker who used to work in the fields, cutting cane in the Versailles’ estate, which was at the time privately owned. She understood the challenges of the sugar industry, the hardships that workers had to endure and my dedication to the union and to workers’ issues”, he made known. Chand went on to say, “My wife and children understood that a lot of my time was dedicated to work, even many weeks on Sundays. I had
absolutely no objection from them, even though I felt I was dedicating too little time to my three children. My wife’s support was a big boost for me to work hard,” he said. Mr. Chand, a lover of cricket, told this publication that even to this day, he is still into the sport but he is not too much into the excitement associated with the game now, referring to the T20 matches- the biggest party in sports. He prefers to look at test match cricket. His all time favourite cricketer is Guyana’s
very own, Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Chand feels that the West Indies team can never find a replacement for Chanderpaul. The lover of chicken curry told this publication that he personally feels
that his contribution to the Agricultural Sector and Politics has been satisfactory and he is ready to
hang up his gloves. He said, should his party call on him again to serve as a Member of Parliament, he will decline and lend his support from outside. He could not say though how soon he will retire from the sugar union.