Dear Editor,
As we approach another year-end season, a time usually filled with joy and happiness and one where we seek to celebrate with our friends and families, it is disheartening to recognise that a few more sugar workers will join the ranks of the unemployed. In a matter of days, 12 workers who were retained to operate the power plant of Wales Estate will no longer have a job as GuySuCo has decided to bring an end to this operation. They were among the lucky few who were retained by the sugar corporation at that location.
They now join the thousands of their colleagues who really have nothing much to celebrate and who really cannot afford to celebrate. Today, for the ex-workers of Wales, East Demerara, Rose Hall and Skeldon they have been forgotten by the powers-that-be. It was therefore, for us, most interesting to see Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, according to a November 19, DPI report, in relation to the Troy Resources situation being quoted to say “[t]his is not the time of the year that we should see workers going home, they have homes, it’s Christmas”.
We agree with Mr Trotman. But we wonder where were his and his colleagues’ concerns when over a thousand workers, now nearly three years ago, were sent home from Wales Estate during the height of the year-end season. Similarly, wasn’t he concerned when the Government approved the sending home of nearly six thousand workers from Skeldon, Rose Hall and East Demerara during the 2017 Christmas Season. We remember the front page of the December 07, 2017 Stabroek News. The paper had printed boldly “Skeldon reeling after GuySuCo dismissals” and at the bottom there was a picture of President Granger bottle feeding elephants in Nairobi, Kenya completely disconnected from the travesty in Guyana.
While we are saddened about the situation facing the Troy workers, it is a situation we are too familiar with. At the same time, we ask Mr Trotman, didn’t the sugar workers have homes too? Don’t they and their families also deserve the joys and treats the season brings? What made it right for them to not only go home but stay home at this time of the year? Certainly, Mr Trotman had the ability to avoid the situation, but it appeared that he really didn’t care. This is yet another demonstration of the Government’s double-standard!
Yours faithfully,
Seepaul Narine
General Secretary
GAWU
