Barama’s 274 Land of Canaan workers were yesterday formally laid off with a promise of severance pay amid a stunning turn of events caused by damage to a vital water boiler on October 4 and which left nagging questions about why it would take so long to repair or replace.
The employees seemed resigned to their fate sweetened by the promised severance and were told to “face the sun” by the company CEO as they were thanked for their years of service.
Employees of the plywood factory were made redundant after the “negligence on the part of trained and experienced personnel led to the boiler system not being fed with the required water supply and resulted in the overheating of the system. This immediately resulted in the entire factory being shutdown,” Barama said in a statement it issued on Thursday night. That statement came following a news item Thursday afternoon on www.stabroeknews.com on the imminent layoffs. Up to that point the company had said nothing about the matter.
Yesterday shortly after 7 am at the Land of Canaan office, Peter Ho told his soon-to-be former workers who flowed out into the foyer, “It’s not what happen it’s what you do. You can make a difference. Face the sun.” Ho encouraged the workers to turn “this crisis into opportunity”.
He assured the workers that the company will pay a severance package. Prior to Ho’s address, the Human Resources Officer told the men and women that their input will always be remembered since it turned the factory around.
Many of the affected men and women have given the company 17 and more years in service. Men like senior supervisor of the electrical department Mark Harris who has given 16 years to the company now has nowhere to go.
Harris says he is living in the company’s staff quarters and needs time to find a new place to live because “we ain’t got nowhere to go”. This newspaper was told that workers come from as far as Linden and Berbice to work at the Land of Canaan operation.
But Harris is looking on the positive side of his situation. “We gah move on we can’t just study and do nothing,” he said. Harris noted that incident leading to his unemployment “is something that happen so sudden”.
And one woman, who has given 16 years to the plywood factory, says that she was very concerned about what will happen to all those people who were made jobless since most of the workers were single parents.
Support
Meanwhile, Guyana Labour Union Head, Carvil Duncan, told the workers that the Union will “ensure that whatever benefits given to you, you will enjoy.”
“We have a responsibility to ensure that every person is properly treated whether you stop paying [union dues] our task will be over when everybody is paid and everybody is satisfied,” an impassioned Duncan told the workers.
However his address was constantly interrupted by grumbling from the workers. Workers did not seem to have much confidence in the words Duncan was offering them.
When Duncan began to say that workers were now unemployed because of the “carelessness and misjudgement of a worker” he was interrupted by an upset crowd which could be heard shouting “bosses does gah check”. Calming the crowd, he again reassured those gathered that his union will ensure that they get all that is due to them.
Barama says that its workers “will receive their full benefits which are set above the statutory provisions”. Mohindra Chand, Head of Corporate Affairs yesterday said that currently calculations of severance are being done which will be followed by a review between the Union and company and “hopefully by the end of the month” workers will begin collecting their package.
Workers severance is being calculated according to the number of years each worker has given the company. The package also includes outstanding leave and one month’s pay in lieu of notice.
And Labour Minister Manzoor Nadir told workers that they have the full support of his ministry. He assured them that his ministry will ensure that the payout is up to standard. Nadir added too that workers were “getting better than what the law stipulated” in their package.
In illustrating his ministry’s determination to support the workers, Nadir told them that they will be made a first priority at the employment agency and he urged them to fill out registration forms which were later handed out.
Nadir also told workers that their out-of-school children will be given first priority as well in the government’s technical vocational training programme, which is offered throughout the country, but they needed to act immediately since there was limited space. The training programme lasts for six months.
The atmosphere meanwhile, at the Barama office at Land of Canaan on the East Bank of Demerara was surprisingly upbeat after the speeches were made. The scene in the compound was reminiscent of the last day of high school.
In groups around the compound persons were exchanging numbers, hugging each other and conversing. But one worker made the observation that the realisation of their unemployment will set in later. “For me the time won’t be against me, I glad for the rest” the man stated.
And Bibi Farina Sulayman, who has worked five years at the company, says that she plans to stop working. “I don’t think I able wuk back,” she says but if she has to work, “Ah lil cleaning wuk ah wud do”.
Effects of closure
Barama says it foresees a severe financial impact which will extend to the local and export markets, suppliers and service providers, neighbouring communities and the social well being of the families of the affected workers.
“Given the extensive impact of the shutdown period the Ministry of Agriculture has commenced an Impact Assessment in consultation with the company. This will be followed by the examination of various options in cushioning the impacts and supporting the earliest regularisation of the situation,” Barama said in its statement.
The damaged boiler that is the cause for the layoffs is considered the heart of the factory Barama said in its release. According to Chand, the steam drum of the boiler was not getting water because the valve which allows the water into the drum was in the locked position preventing the water from entering.
The heat which was generated from the drums without water melted, deformed and displaced the metal tubing and the housing segments changed shape, Chand said.
Chand said that the boiler is still under assessment to determine if it needs to be replaced or repaired. The operation the company said will be closed for nearly a year. According to Chand this is the length of time needed if the company chooses to repair the boiler.
It will take four months to fabricate any new parts, three months to ship it from South Korea where it will be made and about four to five months for installation and another month for it to be commissioned, Chand said.
If the replacement option is chosen, then it will take longer than a year to have the Land of Canaan factory back in operation. The damage was discovered last week Monday.
As for the mechanic who believes that he is at fault, efforts to get on to him were futile yesterday. But according to Barama’s statement, “the company intends to follow the necessary course of action against those responsible in accordance with the relevant statutory provisions”. The mechanic said that the fault lies with the operator who had last serviced the boiler.
The operator, he said, had forgotten to turn on the valve that allows water to run into the boiler after he serviced it.
This is the first time that workers have actually been laid off en masse. Twice in 2007, workers were threatened with layoffs in October because of heavy fines from the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC). The GFC had imposed over $96 million in fines on the company which was accused of underutilizing its concession while tapping logs in other concessions.
However, workers were spared after intervention by the Ministry of Agriculture and talks with their union.
In December, the company had announced that it would have to close the factory for a few months to allow time to accumulate and build up a stock of Baromalli, the main species of peeler logs used for plywood processing which was said to be unavailable.
Barama Company Limited was established in Guyana in 1991 and is owned by Asian logging company, Samling Global Limited.
The Land of Canaan operation has a plywood factory and sawmill while the Buck Hall operation in Essequibo also has a sawmill, log pond and is the point of entry to the company’s forest concession. It was at the centre of more controversy recently when one of its employees was found dead in a wood chipper at Buck Hall.
With big plans originally for plywood manufacturing and export from its huge 4.1 million acres northwest concession, the company has fallen far short of expectations and has frequently incurred the wrath of regulators.