Workers of the Wales estate are disappointed that they have not received their severance pay more than one month later and the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) continues to blame the delay on an interim injunction granted by the High Court.
The sugar unions, GAWU and NAACIE secured an interim injunction restraining GuySuCo from proceeding with plans to sever the employment of workers on the Wales Estate unless it consulted with the unions in accordance with section 12 of the Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Act. The estate’s cane farming operation will close at the end of the year as part of GuySuCo’s restructuring.
Despite wanting the estate to remain in operation, some workers had decided to accept severance which was due on May 4, because they were already out of jobs. They were looking forward to using the money to secure their future by investing or saving it.
When Stabroek News contacted some of them last week, they lamented that they had been home for two months already and some said they have no other means of earning an income.
“It’s hard not having a job and not knowing where the money would come from to run the home…,” they said.
The workers said they would be “badly affected” because the estate was their “backbone,” noting that the entire West Bank depends on the estate for survival.
Fifteen of their colleagues have accepted jobs at the Uitvlugt estate and they told Stabroek News that they did not join them because of the long distance and the hassle to get there.
Cyril Joseph from the tillage department, questioned; “How long they think the little money we have would last? It almost finish and we don’t know what we would do. How people would survive? They put us out of our daily bread and now they can’t give us payment. They were supposed to fulfil their promise.”
According to him, “They have people suffering; if they want to close the estate they should have a plan in place for the workers first. If they want to start something else they should have started the preparation already. How can they just shut the door on 105 workers…?”
He said GuySuCo should have taken an example from the owner of Gafoors, who “went through so much when his store burn down and still look after his workers properly.”
He said too that every day they would check the newspapers for vacancies. Joseph told this newspaper that the “economy dropped” and that some businesses in the area have started to downsize staff and reduce the number of days they work.
The workers told Stabroek News that when they were invited to a meeting to discuss the option of severance, they asked that the union be invited.
GuySuCo responded that the union was already notified and it did not have to be present at the meeting. “They tell we to decide our mind [about accepting]…”
The workers also said that shortly after the injunction was granted, the estate’s manager, Dev Kumar met with them and tried to explain that the cheques were already written to pay the severance but they held them back because of the injunction.
However, one worker stood up and challenged his statement, saying that the money was supposed to be paid even before the court order came up.
The worker argued too that he had seen the court document and that it did not prevent them from receiving the payment. The workers walked out after a heated exchange with Kumar. Subsequently, about 40 to 50 workers travelled to GAWU’s head office in Georgetown to demand an explanation. The union, they said, also confirmed that the document did not prevent payment of the severance.
Disappointed
Many housewives said they are already finding it hard to put food on the table and to find snacks and money to send their children to school. They said too that their homes are short of basic commodities because they cannot afford to purchase them.
According to a worker, “When you have a job you try to upgrade your life and you take loan or buy household items on credit and now you have to worry how to pay it back.”
The workers are disappointed that since the January announcement of the impending closure of the estate, neither President David Granger nor Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder has visited them despite several pleas and questioned whether the government “really care” for them.
They said too that none of the top officials from GuySuCo has spoken to them directly even though such an important decision was made to close the estate.
Meanwhile, GuySuCo had said in a release: “Firstly, the corporation wishes to state that the Wales Estate will not be closed but is currently undergoing a process of transition from primarily a sugar cane cultivation and sugar production entity, to an establishment that will be producing other crops. This estate was identified as the location for the pilot project for the diversification programme of the corporation.”
The workers told Stabroek News that they have never been told officially about the diversification programme but said they learnt about it the other day and have been doubtful about if it would materialize.
The services of 67 other workers were said to have been terminated but in the release, GuySuCo said that the workers [from crop husbandry] were only “engaged with the corporation on a crop-by-crop arrangement, hence at the end of the 2nd crop in December, 2015, the engagement naturally came to an
end…”
It said too that the temporary employees in harvesting and other job areas have been re-engaged until the end of 2016.
A tractor operator, Ganpat, had told this newspaper that he has already started “driving hire car” belonging to someone because he could not wait on the severance pay to decide what to do.
He started working at the estate in 1984 and returned in 2001 after a break in service. Ganpat said it would be “hard to go to another estate” but the closure would not affect him much.
He was always accustomed to doing gardening and would even travel to the US during the out-of-crop season. He said accepting the severance would be better for him.
Shafeek Khan, a tractor and excavator operator, has already accepted that “there is no future for the estate” so he has decided to “take the pay off.”
Another worker, Lindo, who was employed as an irrigation operator, said accepting the severance benefit was the best decision for him. He had done work at the Uitvlugt estate in the past and recalled that he had to “rush to catch the truck to go to work and to come home back.”
According to him, “We had to leave home early in the morning and reach home till night” while at Wales he would work from 6 am to 2 pm. He has started to look for other jobs and has been offered one as a chain saw operator. He has not started as yet though and is waiting until he receives his payment.
In an interview with this newspaper, Komal Chand, president of the GAWU, had said Uitvlugt has over 1,500 workers while Wales has 1,700, including security.
“Were the workers to opt to go and work at Uitvlugt, they cannot absorb (them) there because it is already fully staffed,” he said. Besides, “Uitvlugt factory has no vacancy.”
He said when GuySuCo officials met with the union in January “they promised to discuss who would be affected but all they did was to provide a list of the workers who would be made redundant.”
Chand noted that some workers who accepted the transfer are those with “poor service because their severance would not be much.
“GuySuCo cannot compulsorily send,” some of the workers to Uitvlugt “because they are entitled to severance pay because the location between the two estates is more than ten miles apart…”
According to him, “The showdown would come at the time of closing the factory if other jobs are not created at Wales by the end of this year.”
In the meantime, some private cane farmers from the Canal Number 1, West Bank Demerara have already started transporting cane to the Uitvlugt Estate through their backdam, which is closer than the other locations
With regard to the LBI estate on the East Coast, he said management has taken a decision to close it even though the workshop was extended to facilitate more maintenance/repairs.
He said more than 800 LBI workers would be displaced while some have been earning ‘disturbance allowance’ at Enmore.
