Estate workers at Skeldon have gone on strike following an altercation between the manager and a worker on Friday evening and negotiations are ongoing about the terms of resumption.
Head of the Guyana Agriculture Workers Union (GAWU), Komal Chand told Stabroek News yesterday that the union was still trying to understand the full nature of the altercation which resulted in the strike.
He said that the strike involved a complete closure of the field and a partial one of the factory. Chand said that information from the workers was that the estate manager, Dave Kumar, was allegedly intoxicated on Friday night around 11.30 pm when he and a mill dock worker got into a physical altercation.
Both men were said to have hit each other and on Saturday morning estate management notified the worker that he was terminated.
The remaining workers then decided to strike. One cane harvester told Stabroek News that after the initial incident they thought it would be back to business on Saturday, however the employee was given a dismissal letter and removed from the estate by security. He said that “the other man them they are thinking if it was one of them that just get fired what they going to do. So they decided to strike in solidarity with the man.”
He said that the “estate manager been drunk and want to fight the man so they exchange blows.” He noted that not all of the workers participated in the strike.
Stabroek News was told that the estate management was issued with three demands by the workers; that the dismissal be withdrawn, that the worker be paid from the time of his dismissal to the point he is reinstated and for the estate manager to write an apology. This publication was told that the Guyana Sugar Corporation will not be complying with the demands. This newspaper was given to understand that workers were at the time of the incident “liming on the job,” and when they were approached by management to get back to work things escalated. Stabroek News was told by a GuySuCo representative that Skeldon has “too much indiscipline” and that management was looking to take a firmer stance on ensuring workers are doing their jobs in order to reduce the large amount of downtime when they are not doing anything.
According to the representative, harvesters, billet harvesters as well as workers dealing with mechanical tillage machinery and crop husbandry still came to work as did the majority of factory workers; it was only a few persons who did not show up. The representative said that the weekends generally have persons staying home and that today will be the real test of the GAWU strike.
He said that the estate management was contesting the mill dock operator was ever hit, and as a result it was unlikely that his dismissal would be overturned.
Stabroek News was told by Skeldon workers that the management “don’t know to talk to people right” and that it was normal behaviour for managers to be intoxicated, but this was refuted by the GuySuCo representative.
There has been no official response from the state owned corporation as to what they will do should the strike continue on into the week. Sugar production for the second crop has been lagging behind expectations at approximately 45,000 tonnes, while total production for the year is just under 150,000 tonnes. The Skeldon estate, with the assistance of private cane farmers is responsible for just under 20 per cent of the total sugar production annually.
