Historical Organization
Guyana Industrial Workers Union
Guyana Industrial Workers Union
Details
Organization Timeline
Sugar workers begin a colony-wide strike against the cut-and-load system
📅 22 April 1948On 22 April 1948, about 1,200 sugar workers from seven East Coast Demerara estates began strike action against the cut-and-load harvesting system and unfair measurement of work. The method required...
Striking sugar workers take their demands to Georgetown
📅 5 June 1948On 5 June 1948, striking sugar workers staged a mass protest in Georgetown after weeks of unresolved labor conflict on the estates. The march brought rural plantation workers’ demands into the...
Talks at Non Pareil fail to settle the sugar strike
📅 15 June 1948On 15 June 1948, workers and estate representatives met at Plantation Non Pareil, but the discussions did not resolve the strike. The workers had rejected the cut-and-load system and the estate’s...
Colonial police kill five striking sugar workers at Enmore
📅 16 June 1948On 16 June 1948, British Guiana police opened fire on striking workers gathered outside the factory at Plantation Enmore. Five workers were killed: Rambarran, Pooran, Lallabagee, Surajballi and Harry....
Sugar workers march to bury the Enmore dead
📅 17 June 1948On 17 June 1948, workers and mourners marched from Plantation Enmore toward Le Repentir cemetery in Georgetown with the funeral hearses of the five workers killed by police. The march transformed a...