International- The WFTU mourns the passing of cde Komal Chand, member of the WFTU Presidential Council

The big class-oriented and militant trade union family of the WFTU, representing 100 million affiliated workers across the five continents, expresses its deep sorrow after the passing of Cde Komal Chand on 8 April 2020. Cde Komal has been a member of the WFTU Presidential Council since 2005 and the 15th World Trade Union Congress in Havana. He has also served as President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) as well as Member of the Guyana Parliament from 1992 until 2019.

Cde Komal has been a firm, class-oriented militant of the WFTU who has steadily fought for the field and factory workers’ rights in the sugar industry, not only in Guyana but across the whole Caribbean region. He joined the GAWU in 1975 as the Union’s Organizing Secretary and for many decades fervently struggled along with his class brothers and sisters who toiled in the fields and factories of the sugar estates against social exploitation. Soon he became General Secretary and later on was elected President of the GAWU.

Cde Komal Chand has also been a stable militant of the WFTU, an advocate of the class principles and values of the world working class in difficult times. He contributed to the strengthening of the WFTU after the 15th World Trade Union Congress and the promotion of WFTU views on unionism, internationalism and solidarity with the peoples who struggle against imperialism.

His loss is not only a loss for the Guyanese working class but also for the international working class, the international class-oriented trade union movement. The WFTU extends its sincerest condolences to cde Komal’s family, comrades and other relatives and friends.