Dear Editor,
When partners reach the stage in any organisation, domestic or otherwise, that they are not on speaking terms, it can’t get much worse. It is an ominous signal of possible disintegration. When one discerns more than one such example in a single organisation it is not hard to be convinced of its deterioration. In this instance GuySuCo is a good (bad) configuration to analyse – in sequential order of disclosed events.
First a lowly sugar worker at his station on night shift, when confronted by the highest ranking manager on site in an unanticipated (and more likely needless) altercation, is dismissed for ‘slapping’ that official.
The public release made minimal mention of the circumstances leading up to the incident, but asserted that it was an aggressive action by an Afro-Guyanese surrounded by Indo-Guyanese colleagues who voluntarily went on strike in their support of his (mis)behaviour.
Yet their action was not only belied by the evidence eventually presented to the purported Ministry of Labour, but also by the strikers going unpenalised – probably in mitigation of the fact that the party to the fracas was considered to have a reputation as an aggressor, as was publicised even after this yet legally unresolved incident.
What this episode represented to the more discerning, is the communication gap between members of the work team of a once most reputable local employer is unacceptably wide.
But the above alone does not necessarily make the case of the lack of trust endemic in this once epitome of good management, even with all the boisterous strikes in the past, complemented as they were with respect between employer and employee, and highlighted at one stage by the incidence of a worker participation model, wherein both parties intermingled around a table on speaking terms, without bargaining in the accustomed industrial relations environment.
But to return to the present: there was the recent embarrassing publication of the industry’s massive indebtedness to the National Insurance Scheme which is normally expected to survive on the joint contributions of employer and employee. This appalling disclosure was compounded by a report of estate workers complaining of their inability to access NIS benefits (contrary to ministerial assertion that benefits were payable by a compliant NIS.)
Why is it that the public are considered dupes by those who have duped themselves into believing that the former are as gullible as they are. But even so the public outside of GuySuCo is the wrong target.
The organisation’s target must be its workers – management and non-management – who would wish to be assured not only of current benefits, but importantly of future pensions.
Unlike the mistaken view that GuySuCo is a ministerial agency its Board must rise to its responsibility of comprehensively managing a corporation, and exploit measures to establish, if not restore, confidence in its competence to lead. It is their responsibility to get on speaking terms with their employees, with a view to bridging the communication gap with some modicum of trust.
Incidentally, little does the verbose Minister realise how his pronounced bypassing of the Board indicates the level of trust between them – a view critical to the sensitive and sensible sugar worker.
It should be the end, but hardly so. For example, there is the ridiculousness of a story of the dismissal of umpteen workers for their alleged delinquency in the application of fertilisers amongst sugar cane ratoons out-of-crop. To those who know better this is an embarrassing admission of the poor structuring of the organisation, and the accompanying indifferent delegation of management and supervisory authority and responsibility. The lack of directions rears its sterile head. It is well established that this critical, though basic, area of operations demands a precision which needs to be closely monitored and supervised, and yet this glaring lapse seems to have been ignored and only the subordinates were penalised – once more shouting aloud to the rest of the industry’s workers the irreverent gap in their conversation.
So that talk of methodologies, technologies and systems is exactly just that: unconvincing ‘talk’, once, as pointed out earlier, it continues to dis-acknowledge the importance of the human resources.
So it may very well not be recognisable that the delinquency charged in respect of fertiliser mal-distribution may be more real than apparent action of protest about being ignored, and of not being on speaking terms – a profound chasm the blandishments of no one person can ever bridge.
Meanwhile the fact is that the Ministry of Labour no longer believes in the objective of its function. In the absence of its direction it must rely on directives.
To those articulate managers who sneer at principle, reference is made to Stephen MR Covey’s The Speed of Trust as a long-lasting read.
Of the dozen or more internationally recognised Chairmen and CEOs who commend its contents from their respective organisational experience, hopefully the following will suffice:
“The Speed of Trust …. superbly achieves the goal of providing a road map to peak performance, both for individuals and organisations. But the true genius of the book is its universal relevance, as it combines a highly effective common-sense approach with frank guidance to enhance all relationships in life” – JW Marriott, Jr, Chairman and CEO,
Marriott International, Inc.
It can be such a long walk between GuySuCo and the Marriott.
Note: the above was written well before the dismissed workers were re-employed.
Yours faithfully,
EB John
