Around 280 workers at the Land of Canaan operation of Barama Company Limited are expected to be made redundant tomorrow as the company shuts down its operations after negligence on the part of four workers resulted in its boiler being irretrievably damaged.
Stabroek News learnt today that the boiler will take nearly a year or more to be replaced. This is according to a specialist who was flown in from Malaysia. Company officials could not reach for comment today. And one worker feels that he is being blamed for something that he did not do.
“My problem is that I serve the company 17 year and they saying they won’t give severance,” the mechanic said. He added further that the other workers who will be made redundant, some of whom have been working at the company for longer than he has, are not satisfied with the severance being offered by the company.
Meanwhile General Secretary of the GLU, Carvil Duncan has confirmed that Barama is closing its operations at Land of Canaan, “First of all the redundancy is not the fault of the management, it is the carelessness of some workers”, he told Stabroek News this afternoon.
However he said that the company has assured the union that all agreements in the collective agreement will be honoured. Duncan has not yet met the workers who are said to be responsible for the damaged boiler but says that the union is prepared to defend the men. Duncan will be meeting with the company and workers tomorrow.
The boiler processes the steam to dry the wood, the mechanic explained. The Land of Canaan operation processes plywood. In 2007, workers at Land of Canaan on the East Bank faced a similar plight when Barama announced that workers would have to be laid off as a result of heavy fines by the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC).
Over $96M in fines were levied by the GFC against Barama after the government accused them of underutilizing its concession while tapping logs in other concessions.
Barama set up here in 1990 with big plans for plywood manufacturing and export from its huge 4.1m acre northwest concession but has fallen far short of expectations and has frequently incurred the wrath of regulators. It was originally co-owned by Sunkyong of South Korea and Samling of Malaysia. Samling now holds all of the shares.
