"Year after year, decade after decade, he dedicated his energies to the workers of Guyana and to the firm belief that we in the struggle for workers' rights shall overcome," he said in a tribute to the labour leader who died Wednesday.

He said Mr. Pollydore, 94, "became an institution, a legend in his lifetime."

According to Yarde, the late Pollydore was respected by leaders of government, the private sector and the labour movement, who found him always available with advice.

The leaders took advantage of the enormous experience he had gathered over the years, and the advice he gave with quiet dignity, he said.

Inevitably, the passing years took their toll and he could no longer give the same level of energetic service to which they had all grown accustomed, Yarde said, noting that it would have been with great reluctance that he retired to his home in the street in the city, so aptly named after him.

He said that through his commitment to labour, Pollydore has made a mark on Guyana and the wider Caribbean, and has left this world a better place than how he found it.