As the time draws nearer for the LBI estate to “merge” with the Enmore facility, workers staged a picketing exercise yesterday in front of the GuySuCo’s head office at Ogle, East Coast Demerara.
About 70 workers assembled at the headquarters around 7:30 am and remained there until 10 am. They plan to continue protesting every week.
They shouted, “We don’t want any merging. We want to remain as LBI workers.” They told this newspaper that they would not enjoy the same conditions at Enmore and that they would be making less money.
The workers bore placards, some of which read: “GuySuCo kicking us – LBI cane cutters – like football,” “GuySuCo said on April 12, 2016 we shall remain LBI workers, on July 26, 2016, we are told shall soon be Enmore Workers,” “We can’t trust GuySuCo words!” and “Down with GuySuCo deception!”
Rampersaud Prasad, field secretary with the Guyana Agricultural & General Workers’ Union (GAWU), told this newspaper that 845 workers are attached to the LBI.
He said 40 workers, including 25 field foreman, have opted to receive severance “but GuySuCo said they don’t have money to give them and they are without jobs.”
According to the cane-harvesters, “GuySuCo bringing on greater hardships on workers. We prefer to continue cutting cane at LBI and when there is cane to cut at Enmore we would go there.”
They told Stabroek News that they have already started out at Enmore to weed and plant cane and that while they were receiving $3,300 per day at LBI, they were only paid $2,700 at Enmore.
“We want to remain as LBI workers so we can receive our basic [pay] of $3,300. When we go and work over there [Enmore] they would give us three days tasks for one day’s pay because we can’t finish it. That is too much pressure,” they told this newspaper.
Another reason for being against the merging and wanting to remain as LBI workers even if they go to Enmore to work, is because they would benefit from a one-hour allowance of $245.
In a release, GAWU said that GuySuCo in a meeting with them on July 26, 2016, advised that the transfer is imminent.
It said too that “the Corporation’s announcement was a complete surprise to the union’s delegation, which included officials and shop stewards.”
Further, the release stated that, “This announcement was not in (accordance) with what GuySuCo communicated to GAWU and NAACIE on April 12, 2016 about its intention to close several departments at LBI Estate. Then the Corporation unequivocally said that the cane cutters would not be transferred to Enmore Estate in response to a question from the Unions.”
GAWU also said that “the workers and the Union see the Corporation’s latest position as a betrayal and which can contribute to eroding the trust between the parties. GAWU strongly believes, taking into account the challenges which confront the industry (in) the need for a relationship predicated on the values of trust and honesty qualities which are essential and necessary between GuySuCo and the workers and their Union at this time.”
This latest move, it said, comes on the heels of no wage increase for 2015, “a minimized API (Annual Production Incentive) award last year, and the decision to close (sugar production on) Wales Estate. Certainly this is adding to growing discontent and lending to rising tensions in the industry.”
