Dear Editor,
The Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) was taken aback by the comments made by the Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc (GuySuCo) in a letter that appeared in the August 06, 2016 edition of Stabroek News under the authorship of the Corporation’s Senior Communications Officer, Ms Audreyanna Thomas.
The first observation that we wish to highlight is that the closure of the LBI sugar factory in May 2011 was a standalone act by the sugar corporation. Communication in 2011 to that effect by GuySuCo to GAWU and the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE) was given during the engagement of the parties when they met to address the deployment of the LBI factory workers to the Enmore factory. This was five years ago. If it was the Corporation’s decision in 2011 to close the entire LBI operations then why is it being carried out five years later? Why, during this time, was the Field Workshop enlarged to undertake a greater volume of work? It should be noted that several of the top GuySuCo personnel who were involved in the 2011 partial close down of LBI are still at the helm up to today but, for some reason could not implement a decision made since 2011. Well, well is this another instance of the competence that GuySuCo management is known for?
In this regard, we direct Ms Thomas to a letter appearing in the April 27, 2016 edition of Kaieteur News by former GuySuCo Human Resource Director Jairam Petam where he said inter alia that in 2011:- “it was never the intention of the Company to close any operation beyond that of the LBI factory”. This is an unambiguous statement from someone who should know. We hope that this brings greater clarity to the issue.
GAWU believes that if GuySuCo has decided, five years later, to close the operations at LBI then it should be forthright about it in spite of the hardship to the workers that will result. Couching the issue to say it was a done deal back in 2011 only serves to rub salt in a fresh wound.
Our Union also strongly disputes that GuySuCo, at the meeting on April 12, 2016, informed us and NAACIE that all LBI workers would be transferred to Enmore Estate. In fact, GuySuCo’s representative, in response to a question from our Union about the status of the LBI field workers, said pointedly that the LBI field operations would continue and the workers would remain at LBI. He was clear and unambiguous.
Indeed, the Unions and GuySuCo, at the April, 2016 meeting, began to consider the fate of the workers engaged at the administrative offices, field workshop, field laboratory, mill dock, stores and cane transport of LBI with respect to their deployment to Enmore Estate and the entitlements to some who may be retrenched. In that process, each worker concerned was interviewed in the presence of the Unions (GAWU and NAACIE) in keeping with the Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Act (TESPA). That exercise resulted in 42 workers (not 40) being made redundant and 178 being transferred to work at Enmore Estate. Interestingly, GuySuCo boasts of its adherence to the law in this case but at the same time is openly flouting the very law regarding the workers at Wales Estate.
Now, GuySuCo is demanding that the field workers, three months after its assurance, be transferred to Enmore. Shouldn’t the Corporation also in this case follow the same process in keeping with TESPA i.e. interviewing each field worker, as it did regarding the other LBI workers? It seems the Corporation is whimsically adopting different approaches as it so deems.
It also seems that the Corporation’s spokesperson was misled since our Union at no time agreed that the LBI cane cutters would be transferred to Enmore Estate though our Union approved the merger of the two (2) LBI cane cutting gangs namely:- 7A and 7B. It would appear perplexing that our Union would reach such an agreement with the Corporation on August 03, 2016 considering that just a few hours prior to that meeting, the Union and the field workers staged a picketing exercise outside of the Corporation’s Ogle Headquarters expressing their opposition to the arbitrary transfer. We urge Ms Thomas to check with GuySuCo’s representatives with a view to clarify the obviously incorrect communication to the public and to ensure its retraction.
The Corporation is also saying that the current ‘process’ will “bring to an end all operations under LBI”. The fact is that LBI, at this time, has some 2,700 hectares of land under cane cultivation and, therefore, the field operations will obviously continue. Thus, jobs of LBI workers cannot become redundant. In should be noted, however, that should the LBI field workers become a part of the Enmore workforce they would be required to work under less favourable working conditions.
GuySuCo’s letter speaks about the Corporation not closing Wales Estate. Our Union asks: – isn’t the cessation of cane growing and sugar processing at Wales not a closure of the Estate? We are also now told by Ms Thomas that Wales Estate would serve as a launching pad for GuySuCo’s diversification programme. We strongly believe that whatever the new venture/s at Wales may be it/they will not make available a similar number of remunerative jobs as is provided currently by the Estate. It seems that GuySuCo is again engaging in semantics despite the fact that the livelihoods of thousands of Guyanese stand threatened. Should GuySuCo and the Government fail to rescind their unconscionable decision surrounding Wales Estate, the almost 1,600 workers currently in the employ would look forward to their severance pay in keeping with the conditions set out in TESPA and the Collective Labour Agreement between the Union and the Corporation.
The letter also speaks to the concepts of ‘New GuySuCo’ and ‘One GuySuCo’. The unionized workers and the Unions have no clue about the notions expressed. If these notions are references to GuySuCo’s diversification intentions, then the Corporation should bear in mind that this is certainly not new. It’s a regurgitation of the failed GuySuCo’s diversification programme of the mid-1980’s. The “New GuySuCo”, we suspect and fear, will merely be a reflection of the failed past. Our Union as a stakeholder was not even communicated to, so far, about these notions much less being engaged at a formal meeting to discuss them. The Corporation, for about a year now, unlike in the past years, is not engaging and interacting, by way of meetings, with the two Unions at the central level, apart from those engagements surrounding Annual Production Incentive (API) last year. For the Union, this is not a comforting situation.
GuySuCo referred to the need for a progressive relationship between the parties which is desirable at this time. But it is GuySuCo which is displaying disrespect to our Union. GAWU remains committed to dialogue with the Corporation and in maintaining and upholding a fruitful working relationship always in the interest of the sugar industry. We believe that a relationship premised on mutual respect will lend to co-operation so much needed to ensure the viability of the sugar industry. GuySuCo’s walk and its talk should be helpful to and aimed at promoting good relations in the industry.
Yours faithfully,
Seepaul Narine
General Secretary
GAWU