The approximately 1700 sugar workers who were once employed at the Wales Sugar Estate and facing financial hardships have seen the past four months of the COVID-19 pandemic take an even greater toll on their livelihoods in a manner best described as ‘rubbing salt into the wound’.
In addition to these unfortunate workers, 774 private farmers who supplied the estate with sugarcane were also affected. On Tuesday, this newspaper met with some of these previously employed estate workers to find out how they and their families have been coping since the closure of the estate three years ago.
After twenty-five years of service employed as a cane harvester, Jaipaul Persaud was one of the hundreds of workers that were laid off. When this newspaper caught up with him, he was doing some fence repairs at his home.
“I have been doing labourer work, whatever I get, lil bit, lil bit, suh yuh try knock, knock all about,” Persaud said. It is not always that he has work to do and would have to go in search of work when he is without. Sometimes he’s lucky to have the work come to him whenever someone comes looking for him to dig a drain or fix something on their house, but the pay is next to nothing and the work is only for a day or two. Whenever, the crop season is on, he would ‘catch his hand’ working with private farmers.
His family consists of him and his wife, four children, a daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. Currently Persaud works with a private farmer. Every morning at 4:30am, a car picks up him along with several other workers to be taken to the work site. With only half a day’s work provided, he makes $2,000 but because his transportation expense is $500 a day, he takes home only $1,500.
“Basically, ah trying to make a lot less money do for the same set of expenses. If me was still working at the estate, life would ah be so much better,” he said. The man explained also that a labourer who worked at the estate was required to make no less that seventy hundred and fifty contributions to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) to qualify for NIS pension. However, although he has qualified for a pension by virtue of the amount of contributions he would have made during his service, he has to wait a few more years before he can benefit from the pension fund.
Karly (only name given), stated that he has found it exceptionally difficult to provide for his family after he lost his job. “I work at the estate for thirty something years. I was fifteen when I start working with them. Them time that I had six children and the estate work take care of everybody and build this lil house I got. I even save from it,” Karly said. Presently, only four of his six children are alive, one died just a year ago.
According to the 58-year-old man, because of his age, people are reluctant to hire him and he still has two more years before he is eligible to receive his NIS pension, which he added, makes providing for his family an even more difficult task. Three of his older children have their own families to care of. His wife and fifteen-year-old son depend on him to provide for their home.
“I wish if they can open back the factory. Nuff of the big ones only care to thief, but me, I work real hard and honest for my money,” Karly said, adding that all he wants is an opportunity to work for his money.
“Now I make my living working with them private farmers. Sometimes, two days or three days I work for the week. I ain’t work yet for the week and today ah Tuesday and I ain’t know when I will work this week. I waiting on them to call me and tell me if it got work for me to do,” he said.
Seeloachanie Lutchman is the wife of a cane harvester. At the time she spoke with this newspaper, her husband, Mahadeo, was away working at one of the private farms. Her husband was employed with Wales Sugar Estate for twenty-five years. It’s been twenty-two years since the pair have been married. The woman shared that prior to tying the knot, Mahadeo was already employed at the estate.
A toll
The couple share a daughter. However, Lutchman has three other children from a previous union. Since Mahadeo lost his job with the estate, the situation has taken a toll on the family. In addition, their 20-year-old daughter had developed a bone tumour which resulted in the family having to find a million dollars to cover the cost of a surgery that needed to be done. With the help of relatives, the procedure was carried out last year at Woodlands Hospital. Lutchman explained that the family turned to private care after first going to the West Demerara Regional Hospital (WDRH) and the doctors there not finding anything wrong with the young woman despite complaints of pain in her right leg.
A recent fall almost four weeks ago led to the woman’s daughter breaking the very leg she had the surgery done on which now has her confined to a bed. Since her surgery, Lutchman noted that her daughter has had to see the doctor every two to three weeks for the first six months then every six months after that. Doctor visits began again four weeks ago as a result of the fall; she is yet to return to the doctor this week (Thursday, July 16). Every doctor’s visit requires the help of her son who lives elsewhere, but would try to be available to lift his sister to a car and again from the car to the doctor’s office and back.
Lutchman disclosed that every doctor’s visit costs the family $15,000 inclusive of the taxi fare from Canal Number Two to Georgetown and back, as well as the consultation fee and x-ray. Since 2018 to date, the woman pointed out that her daughter has done some twenty-five x-rays. Owing to the young woman’s illness, she and Lutchman are unable to work which leaves Mahadeo as the sole breadwinner of the family. “It’s very hard on us but we are not giving up. It getting hard for my husband because he getting old too. He’s fifty but anyway God will make a way for us,” she said.
Work, Lutchman added, is not regular and the recent heavy downpours hamper work from being done in the farm.
Dhaniram Boodhoo, a former Wales Sugar Estate employee was putting away his brush-cutter having just cut his lawn. Asked whether he weeds yard for a living now, the man said he doesn’t, but pointing to his wife Gaitrie sitting in a hammock, he informed that the two have since opened a chicken business.
For twelve years Boodhoo worked as a cane harvester with the estate. Gaitrie shared that prior to her husband being laid off she was forced to stop working after an accident at the flour mill where she worked for two years. She showed her left hand bearing the scars of a cut and subsequent stitches, explaining that surgery was done where steel replaced her crushed bones. She is unable to use her hand. Not being able to work she was stuck at home but when Boodhoo lost his job, the two had to find something else to do to earn an income as Gaitrie has three daughters who live with them. This led to the chicken business.
“Right now, we depending on the chicken and when that sell is that. We does buy on credit from somebody and when we sell the chicken off, we does pay he back. When you sell it, you got to buy lil bit, lil bit thing. We can’t buy the same amount of grocery like we used to buy before,” Gaitrie said. Though it’s not much, the woman also benefits from disability payments based on her accident.
“I hope they would open back. If they open, I gone back to work but if not, then we hope this chicken business can expand,” Boodhoo added.
Odd jobs
Following his job loss, Haatram Ramcharran is among the numerous persons who have resorted to doing odd jobs in his area. Ramcharran worked a total of thirteen years with the estate and prior to that, with private farmers. Asked why he left working with private farmers for the estate, the man explained that he did so for the benefits offered by the sugar company. However, the thirteen years that he worked were not enough to allow him to make seven hundred and fifty contributions, therefore he is currently ineligible for NIS pension.
Sometimes he is able to work two or three days in a week but so far this week, he has not been able to work. With no work for last week, he went the entire week without a job. According to the man, because he is in his fifties, private famers are turning him away resulting in him depending on a small job here or there in the community, whether to fix someone’s fence or whatever else they may need him for. With his children living elsewhere with their families, Ramcharran has only himself and his wife to take care of. Groceries and bills he noted, amount to approximately $55,000 a month, which for him is a big target to meet, not having a regular job.
Premchand Doris was still dressed in his work clothes and wearing a long sleeve shirt over a t-shirt. Earlier in the day, he had done a bit of masonry on a bridge for a fellow villager. “After this one day work, that’s the whole day for the week and nothing else. Normally, they pay you like $3,000 for this kind of work. You cannot ask for more especially when you need the job, you have to agree to take the work. The work cost more than that but you can’t do anything about it”, Doris said.
The man who has a wife as well as teenage sons attending West Demerara Secondary and St Joseph High schools lamented that life is very hard for the family. He is the sole breadwinner for their home.
This is what his life has been for the last several years since losing his job. With both his children attending schools outside of his community, he spends nothing less than $8,000 on transportation on a weekly basis.
Doris noted that when he was employed at the estate, he could easily provide for his family, adding that he had taken care to have Wi-Fi installed for his sons which he has had to forego following the closure of the Wales Estate. He noted that his wife has since had to put a two-day data plan on her cellphone and when possible, a week’s worth of data for whenever his children had assignments to research.
Just when he thought his situation couldn’t get any worse, COVID-19 hit Guyana and work is even harder to find Doris had shared. “Sometime you get a two day this week and the next week you don’t get anything. That’s how it’s going. You don’t know when the money will make. We looking for this previous government come back in power and hope that they do what them say about opening back the estate. We only want to put we family good,” Doris said.
“People who been working GuySuCo estate for the past how much years, them people ain’t working nowhere you got to say and the distance to go and work Uitvlugt Estate, nuff of them nah want to go because you know why, them not paying them the mileage money,” Ramlakhan (only name) said.
According to the man he believes that because Region 3 has more PPP supporters, the region was targeted as a way to put these persons out of a job. “As far as me concern, because most of Indian people live in Region 3, that is why the estate was closed. We don’t have no proper job for them. Region ain’t got no industrial firm where people here can turn to and work at; everything in Region 4. Now them ah fight fuh close down Uitvlugt Estate, what gon happen to Indian people. Them one one farmers who got them own farms, them is rich people. Is everything in this country, when you work, you gah fuh strike fuh money, anything you do, you got to strike fuh money, now yuh vote, yuh got to strike fuh get yuh vote right,” the man stressed.
“Me aright, me’s a pensioner getting pay, when me dead and gone, me ain’t know what gon happen to the rest of [this] generation. This country ain’t going nowhere. This country, we nah believe in oil, oil nah ready yet. We used to live on gold, timber, rice, sugar, bauxite, name it. Oil is what causing the big problem in this country,” Ramlakhan added.
Fish bone
Ramlakhan relies on his NIS pension to take care of him and his wife. After twenty eight years of working with the estate, he had to stop following a surgery. The man explained that he had mistakenly swallowed a fish bone while having his meal almost four years ago. The incident resulted in him having to have surgery done on his stomach.
Prior to working at the estate, he was a presidential guard working for both late presidents, Desmond Hoyte and Cheddi Jagan, which he did over the course of five years.
Ramlakhan shared that his son was also employed at the estate and following being laid off he was accepted to work at Uitvlugt Sugar Estate. He has since left and began doing carpentry but owing to the lockdown, he gets a three of two days’ work every week. His son however, has a family of his own that he has to take care of therefore, Ramlakhan cannot depend on him.
“When me done pay bills and buy groceries fuh me home, me barely left with $2,000 to carry on me for the month,” stated the man.
He explained that for someone who worked at the Wales Estate to be eligible for NIS pension, they would have had to work fifteen hard years which can be the equivalent of 750 NIS contributions. Ramlakhan further expounded that a contribution is earned on job work instead of someone covering a day job. A job work can last several days. “Cane-cutter got incentives. They got three incentives they does draw: 10 tons, 15 tons and 18 tons. You got to work seven days to make 18 tons to 21 tons,” he said.
Sixty-four-year-old Henry (only name given) had forty two years of unbroken service with the Wales Estate. According to the man he began cane harvesting before he moved his way up to being an excavator operator. He was sixteen when he began working at the estate during the time the estate was ran by Booker Brothers, McConnell & Company.
Henry shared that often times he worked seven days a week, for months on before he took a day off. As an excavator operator, he was required to work nights and said that for fourteen years he worked along with his colleague at night. It was on the last one of these nights, that Henry suffered a stroke.
He believes his stroke may have resulted due to stress and explained that he was one of the few workers the estate had kept after laying off hundreds of workers. Henry noted that he was stressed about whether he might be the next one to go.
Owing to his stroke, he was unable to work. Wales Sugar Estate asked him whether he wanted them to give him his severance pay or provide him with a pension. Henry recounted that this was not a decision he felt he could make alone and talked it over with his wife who advised him that a medical pension would be best.
For the last couple of years Henry and his wife have been relying on his pension. Though he is almost fully recovered, he still struggles to use his right hand, adding that he can manage to lift a spoon, at most. Though he preferred not to disclose any details, Henry noted that his pension is enough to take care of him and his wife and they are lacking for nothing.
Persons who were laid off by the estate were given several options – continue working at Uitvlugt Sugar Estate, take their severance pay, or for those who qualify, begin receiving their NIS pension.
Father of two daughters, Omesh Sahadeo, was one of the persons who benefitted from the severance payout, most of which he used to complete the building of his house.
After losing his job, he sought work and was employed as a mason working at Puran Brothers Disposal Inc. Though this new job is fulltime (Monday to Saturday), Sahadeo said that he barely works for enough to cover his family’s expenses and has had to rely on his wife who works as a domestic help.
His wife he noted took up doing domestic chores for various families after he lost his job at the estate. She has been a great help but the recent pandemic has seen less and less jobs coming her way. The recent rains have prevented him from working as he should. Each day he misses, his wage lessens.
Among his expenses are, groceries, water bill, light bill, internet bill, and garbage bill.
“If the previous [administration] go back in government, they said they will open back the estates, I don’t know if is lie or truth but if they open back the estate, I would gladly go back to working there”, Sahadeo said.
It’s one thing to have been laid off from the Wales Sugar Estate as no proper alternatives were put in place for sacked employees, many of whom are the breadwinners for their families, but that coupled with the effects of the pandemic, have seen these families hit a new low, one they are still coming to grips with.
