The political economy of labour in a dependent plantation economy under structural adjustment

Abstract

The political economy of labour in the dependent plantation economy of Guyana is characterised by a traditional ethnic division of labour and ethnic internal labour markets. These features are overlooked by the orthodox-theoretical approaches being currently employed in that country. Indeed, the labour policies contained in the current economic recovery programme have not only by-passed the traditional ethnic division of labour and ethnic internal labour markets, but they also threaten to reinforce them by inadvertently causing a race-based fragmentation of the labour movement and civil society. This situation has the potential to erupt into ethnic violence. What is required are policies derived from an appropriate framework of political economy and segmentation theory, adopted to Guyanese conditions. A combination of those two approaches is considered most appropriate for the analysis of the ethnic division of labour and ethnic internal labour markets and their impacts on the development process in Guyana.