A visit to striking sugar workers at Blairmont

Feb 17, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I paid a visit to the striking sugar workers at Blairmont yesterday along with Moses Nagamootoo, Khemraj Ramjattan, Nigel Hughes and Gerhard Ramsaroop and his wife. As usual, there wasn’t even a slight presence of APNU. I wish I didn’t go because what I saw was a vivid manifestation that life in Guyana’s sugar industry has remained the same over the past two hundred years.
While traveling up, Nigel said to me that when you see how cane cutters work, you wonder how different it was from slavery. Nigel described the similarity – a man with a large machete in the fields cutting cane. It was like that in slavery. It is like that in 2012 in the Guyana sugar industry. Yes, I wished I didn’t go to Blairmont because the pleas I personally heard from those striking sugar workers portrayed the betrayal of this nation by its post-colonial leaders.
Nigel Hughes was introduced by Moses Nagamootoo as the lawyer who would protect sugar workers’ liberties if the GUYSUCO management should infringe their rights during the strike. Then the Berbician stalwart took over. It was a different Nagamootoo. He knew he had created history in Berbice during the last election and he seemed ready to restart the just concluded election campaign.
Khemraj Ramjattan brought cheers from the workers when he told them to expect that the ruling politicians will come up and try to divide them racially.
He urged them to put a stop to that nonsense right away. In my little contribution, I urged Berbicians to show Moses Nagamootoo the respect he deserved for his part in opening the eyes of Berbicians, an exercise that eventually led to an opposition parliamentary victory on November 28, 2011.
Listening to sugar workers’ cry in this strike is an exercise in over-boiling anger. Not in 2012. We have passed the days of slavery.
One worker told us that he has eight children to which Khemraj replied, “You are a very productive man.” Most of those employees on strike have from five kids up. Their very livelihood is in jeopardy. Here are snippets of this tragedy.
Prior to this moment, a cane cutter is given a pair of boots for rainy weather and two pairs of “yachting shoes” for the dry season. Now they are confronted with a choice – choose which type of footwear you want. So if it is the boots, then how can you carry around that in the dry weather? If it is the “yachting shoes,” then how can you use that in the wet season?
The form of “obstacle payment” has been changed and a humiliating replacement faces the workers. When workers find obstacles in the cane, they receive $140. That has been reduced to $20. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it but yes, $20. The weed cleaning gang was paid for 300 rods of work. That has been reduced to 150 rods. Hymac operators are now assigned to brick-breaking tasks to which they have objected.
Workers told us that there are twelve tractors parked up inside the Blairmont compound yet the Blairmont management is hiring private tractors. Does that sound familiar? It should. This is how money goes into the pockets of the friends of the post-colonial slave-owners in the Guyana sugar industry.
The pressure keeps piling up on the workers in that once a task work employee is finished for the day, he could have left the estate. Not anymore. He has to get written permission to leave.
The complaints about NIS records are mountainous. Some strikers told me that the administration cannot find their NIS records for long periods thus disqualifying them from valuable money from the NIS. A gentleman told me he had to go back and forth for one week just to get a correction on his NIS leave form because instead of spelling his name Haman, they wrote Herman.
It was a depressing experience at Blairmont in the early morning hours of Thursday, February 16, 2012. I will never forget it. It tells the story of post-colonial tyranny that has caused Third World people to wish that the white man could come back. I took umbrage with respected Guyanese citizen, Ian Mc Donald when he wrote in a column before the general elections last year that Cheddi Jagan was a genius.
I know from my studies that both Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham have created this mess that we call Guyana.
Cheddi Jagan’s virtual political life was sustained by sugar workers. But really what did he ever do for them?

Latest News

A visit to striking sugar workers at Blairmont

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show | January, 27th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Anderson ton, Looknauth’s 9 seals dominant 10-wicket win for Harpy...

Romaine Brackenridge joins Slingerz FC from...

Mashramani Street Football Championship kicks off...

Savory falls for 99, joins the heartbreaking...

Martin Massiah elected president of Fruta...

CANOC Executive Committee members visits...

Features/Columnists

A wave of criminal deportees may be coming our way soon

OAS Secretary General Election and renewed OAS Consensus

Renegotiation – one big Guyana laff story

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]

A visit to striking sugar workers at Blairmont

Share this:

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show | January, 27th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]