Enmore Sugar Estate employees yesterday staged a strike at the Enmore Martyrs’ Monument in solidarity with fellow workers who were injured and had other health related issues that they feel are not being appropriately dealt with by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and the National Insurance Scheme.
According to a press release from the Alliance For Change, its members Gerhard Ramsaroop and Kojo McPherson accompanied by political activist, Freddie Kissoon, travelled to Enmore and met the workers.
The release said during the strike a worker fell ill and was rushed to the estate clinic but could not be treated as no medic was present. He was then placed in an ambulance to be taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital. However, the ambulance, which the party said is in a clear state of disrepair, only made it as far as La Bonne Intention (LBI) before it sputtered to a stop. The ambulance, the release said, smokes excessively, the tyres are second-hand and euro-band was used to cover rotted holes in the body of the vehicle.
It is not clear if the sick worker ever made it to the hospital.
Further, the AFC said the workers are also aggrieved at the conditions of work when the estate is not grinding canes. They claimed that they are supposed to be given four days of work per week, at an average pay of $10,000. However, the tasks they are given often take more than a day to complete and as a result they have to work for more than four days for the same pay. The low pay, coupled with the poor conditions, forces them to seek alternative incomes away from the estate. Other workers, who are paid by the day, and not by the task, said they were promised an evaluation with the aim of raising their pay from some $1,500 a day to $2,500, but that promise remains unfulfilled.
The workers reiterated the issues that they placed squarely at the feet of management, such as cane being planted far into the backdam costing some $133 million, which had to be left uncut because no canals were dug and the soil was too soft for tractors and trailers to venture that far. Then there was the issue of the dumping of 126 punts of cane (at an average of 5 tonnes per punt) which would adversely affect their annual production incentive (API). The new tractors that were reportedly bought for some $18 million each, and didn’t last more than a few weeks in the fields before experiencing major damage, for which there was no apparent warranty; unusually large losses to theft such as 128 heavy-duty tyres and 500 20-foot drainage tubes, with little consequent increase in security, leading the workers to believe that these were inside jobs; and the unusual breaking of booms on newly purchased Bell loaders.
Meanwhile, Seetaram Bramnarain told the AFC members that he was injured on the job in December last year and while his ankle is still visibly swollen resulting in him not working, he showed a NIS note which stated that he was fit. The man said that in the time he was off the job he only received the equivalent of ten days pay, the sum of $24,000, and he is his family’s sole breadwinner.
“He is at a total loss at the NIS’s evaluation of him and frustrated that he is not receiving adequate compensation, while his bills, including for electricity, are mounting. He has a daughter in school and is worried about his electricity being cut off,” the party said in the release.
His co-worker Seemangal Chatiram has a heart condition and he too lamented that he is not being compensated.
Another worker, Mohamed Ali, severely fractured his leg last June. He related to the party that he only received 6 months of benefits from the NIS, which then abruptly stopped. His wife complained bitterly of being given the royal runaround since. Many of the other workers protested loudly that periods during which they made NIS contributions remain unaccounted for, and they are holding GuySuCo responsible since they expect the corporation to maintain proper records.
The AFC said that it once again made it clear to the workers that it was not there to replace their union (the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union [GAWU]), but to highlight their issues with the aim of timely resolutions. The AFC said it emphasised that the sugar industry is in trouble and that it must not be allowed to collapse.
“It is vital not just as a major employer and foreign exchange earner, but also for the enormous contribution it can make to the energy sector through bagasse and ethanol,” the party said.
