Day 4: Blairmont Sugar Estate strike…AFC pledges support for workers

Feb 17, 2012 News

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Hundreds of sugar workers attached to the Blairmont Estate entered their fourth

day of industrial action yesterday to press the Guyana sugar corporation to address several grievances affecting them.
The strike action is severely hampering the estate’s operations.
Early yesterday, the workers, supported by a contingent from the Alliance for Change (AFC) gathered once again in front of the estate’s Administrative Block.
The AFC team included its Presidential Candidate at the last General Elections Khemraj Ramjattan, Moses Nagamootoo, attorney at law Nigel Hughes, Gerhard Ramsaroop along with former University of Guyana Lecturer Frederick Kissoon.
They were on a fact-finding mission to gather and ascertain relevant information pertaining to the issues which led to the action taken by the workers, who braved the early morning rains and aired their concerns in their usual passionate way, calling for the removal of Estate Manager, Corbette Victorine.
The workers commenced industrial action on Monday, holding a picketing exercise in front of the Admin building calling for the immediate removal of Victorine who they said was carrying out “dictatorial policies” in the running of the estate.
GUYSUCO in CRISIS
“We in the AFC will support you, they cannot touch you,” said Nagamootoo.
“The sugar industry is in crisis. They have to show that they can manage, cut costs, cut production cost, there is a dilemma, they’re going to a bank in Trinidad to get so many billion dollars to pay debtors– they owe people, and they are squandering and overspending and mismanaging, so they have $8B to $12B in the hole and they are trying to squeeze you (the workers), to squeeze water out of stone to get you to be the scapegoat. That you are responsible for all the bad things happening in the sugar industry….so they’re trying to cut back on your working hours, pay, your necessities, and soon they might even say you cannot have water and that you will have to drink the canal water to cut back on costs. Hard times are ahead and there is no short or easy answer,” he noted.
Nagamootoo urged the sugar workers to “hold tight” and “we will try to make representation to the union.”

One of the Guyana Agricultural Workers’ Union (GAWU) representatives said that he attended a meeting on Tuesday with the union’s executive in Georgetown.
“We told them the whole estate has problem. He said that the Field Secretary only informed him that harvesters had problems.”
According to the workers’ representative also present at that meeting were Yoganand Persaud, Chief Labour Officer as well as GAWU General Secretary Seepaul Narine.
The representative stated that the Chief Labour Officer “did not give us ample time to say what we had to say…when we speak, he cut you, then make a ruling that we must have a full resumption of work by tomorrow (Wednesday) or we and the union will pay the full consequences.”
“I feel that slavery is coming back in the sugar industry,” he noted.
Ramjattan enquired from the workers’ representative if the union members at the meeting had said anything at the meeting “to put Yoganand Persaud to his place” and the rep answered that the general secretary did not say much on behalf of the workers.

PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION
The AFC leader then pointed out that “we in the AFC can’t really carry that strong line in parliament unless we really understand your problems so we came here to understand these issues.”
He stated since his arrival in Blairmont yesterday morning, he had filled almost 15 pages of his notebook with complaints the sugar workers raised with him.
“It would appear that NIS contributions, promises being made to the payment of the Annual Production Index (API), and apparently the women section have a huge set of problems.”
Ramjattan noted that before proper representation is made by the party, “we have to articulate your grievances really well. I honestly don’t know how you all are managing with $1400 a day and a weeder $2,000.”
The politician told the sugar workers that it is their union GAWU who was supposed to be hearing and listening to their concerns like the AFC was doing.
“This is something that GAWU has to be doing, but it has appeared over the years that there has been a close relationship between GAWU and management and that is what is causing the representation to deteriorate. What we have to do is to put some fire on GAWU and give them some beating to represent the workers better, otherwise there should be another union because if they continuously do this thing, you might very well ask for another union,” he said.
“We gotta put pressure on GAWU, GUYSUCO and the government. We are well-placed to do that,” he assured.
WORKING WITH APNU
According to Ramjattan, to be effective, the AFC has to work along with the other opposition party, APNU, to get motions passed in parliament
He however pointed out that he was certain that, “them chaps this in GAWU and the government gonna come and tell you, ‘Ramjattan lying in bed with them black man’, but we can only work to improve your lot when we work along with APNU people to get the 33 Members of Parliament to pass the motion. Don’t allow them to propagandize that Ramjattan lying in bed with Granger and all them PNC leaders, and then the thing turn racial and you workers walk away and cause division, so understand that! They love to come and talk this nasty racism.”
Another sugar worker argued that, “As they want cut costs in GUYSCUO, why don’t they cut from the big ones come down. Them in air conditioned in their houses, awe in the rain and sun. Them a get gas allowance for house and we the little ones feeling pressure. They getting vehicles for driving out, buses to take their children to school. What about cane-cutter children?”
The workers plan to continue industrial action until their demands are met and the Estate Manager is removed.

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