Last week’s column examined the first two causes of poverty according to the PRSP in relation to the forestry sector, namely (i) poor economic policies, and (ii) poor governance. Today’s column compares the forestry sector against the fourth cause singled out by the PRSP: “deterioration in the quantum and quality of social services” (PRSP 2001, p 7). This analysis is undertaken in the context of the question: Why is there persistent poverty in the interior alongside the parcelling out of Guyana’s best endowed forests in large-scale forestry concessions?
Part IV, A 3 of the National Forest Plan (NFP) states:
(a) Priority areas for foreign investment shall be the more capital intensive, higher technology projects, and those that are linked to an overseas marketing network.
(b) All foreign investors shall recruit and train Guyanese citizens so that national expertise may be developed and employment opportunities maximised at all levels.
Recruitment – In the hinterland where paid jobs are scarce, forestry could offer regular employment, skills development, and enhanced livelihoods. However, forestry jobs are rarely, if ever, advertised through posters in local communities or regional administrative centres. Forestry jobs are infrequently advertised in the press, radio or TV. In expatriate logging companies, skilled jobs in the forestry sector are almost all reserved for foreign contract workers, or local sub-contractors. Guyanese obtain low-level employment at their sawmills and log landings, and they secure interviews for employment by word of mouth. Some workers bitterly described this as ‘showcase’ employment – African and East Indian workers on display for visiting delegations to observe, while foreign contract workers are out of sight in the forest.
Training – In reality, logging and milling companies provide no career in a conventional sense – no promotion, no in-service training, and incentives only as overtime pay. The number of Guyanese staff sent by expatriate and local forestry companies to the Guyana Forestry Training Centre Inc for training is low. In order to be internationally competitive, Guyana has to invest in a ‘knowledge economy.’ Surely it must be skills and ingenuity which should be fostered – and in what better area than in the forestry and forest products’ sectors in which Guyana possesses a comparative advantage?
Salaries – Guyanese employed at expatriate logging companies generally work 12-hour shifts, 27 days on, 4 days off. Both foreign and Guyanese workers are said to be on one-year contracts, if any, renewable at the discretion of expatriate management, without any assurance of annual increment or cost-of-living increase. Many contracts with Guyanese workers are unwritten in the case of some expatriate companies that have FDI concessionary arrangements. Guyanese allegedly are paid much less than the foreign workers for the same kind of job. Wage labour rates seem to start at G$ 26,000 per month (US$130) for Guyanese. In spite of the pool of skills available from experience in the bauxite and forestry industries, almost all the logging machinery in expatriate companies (bulldozers, graders, skidders, loaders, trucks) continues to be operated by Malaysians, Indonesians, Chinese and Filipinos. Foreign workers are paid in US dollars, generally deposited in their bank accounts in their home country. It is not known whether these foreign workers pay PAYE or any form of income taxes while in Guyana. There is no study of the contribution of the forestry sector to employment, as measured by NIS or PAYE payments.
Food – The dismal social services at logging camps are contrary to the GFC Code of Practice for Timber Harvesting, and letters to Stabroek News have complained frequently about employment practices and living conditions. Guyanese workers employed by a large expatriate company have expressed strong feelings about the sub-standard living accommodation and company food. In one expatriate company the food allowance for foreign workers is said to be more than double that of the Guyanese – $15,000 per month (US$2 per day) versus $7,000 per month (US$1 per day). This allowance for food can be taken as canteen-supplied food, or as a kind of credit voucher which can be spent only by list-ordering from a company-tied shop. A worker makes out a list of shop supplies preferred, but is unable to select alternatives and the shop frequently does not have in stock the listed supplies.
Guyanese are not given assisted passages from work site to home or back. Even the short journey of 15-20 minutes from one log landing to the regional hub which is charged at $1,000 (US$5) per passage, one-way, by a private operator, has to be borne by the low-paid Guyanese worker, in the absence of advance information about their company’s transportation movements on which they might hitch a ride.
Health – The 1953 Forest Law requires, and at least some of the major companies provided, first aid posts at the logging camps which also serviced the neighbouring communities at least into the 1980s. In the present, expatriate workers are immediately transported by expatriate logging companies to hospital if they are sick while Guyanese employees have to await the expatriate company’s pleasure in providing transportation or find their own way to the nearest government health centre for medical treatment. Peer-reviewed research papers have described the differential treatment between foreigners and locals at one major expatriate operational centre (now closed). Other companies have emulated this race to the bottom – and disrespect for Guyanese labour in our own country.
There are no public reports of inspections by relevant government agencies of any of the forest camps of expatriate companies. However, there has been international, if no local, sanction of the Barama Company’s non-compliance with basic health and safety requirements for workers in the camps as well as at work, and requirements for training in accordance with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Principles and Criteria. The Barama Company’s certification for good forest management in its two showcase compartments 4 and 5 was suspended for 3 months at the beginning of 2007.
What is also striking is the pervading climate of fear among Guyanese forestry workers. Guyanese workers expressed fear of personal victimization if their employer suspected that they might have expressed any criticism of their terms of employment. In his budget speech, the Minister of Finance said that the search was on to create thousands of jobs over the next five years. The Minister would be well advised to begin his search closer home. He could convene an inter-sectoral committee to consider policy on the continuing importation of Asian forest workers in the context of high unemployment rates in interior areas. As recommended by OECD guidelines for multinational companies, and as intended in the National Forest Plan 1997, Foreign Direct Investment arrangements should make explicit provision for the training of nationals to take over from foreign workers, at all levels including managerial. This could be through an enabling clause referencing a detailed supplementary action plan, or that plan could be one of the annexes to the FDI agreement. Next week’s column will detail some measures which can be set in train now to create jobs and promote training and job security for Guyanese in the forestry sector.
