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Where are the PPP and GAWU at this crucial time?

Apr 22, 2014 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Please allow me to share some of the recent happenings in the sugar industry at the Berbice Blairmont Estate.
As the 2014 National Budget was presented to the National Assembly one would have thought that the Government would at least have given some increases to workers, especially sugar workers and public servants, but they did not. All they did was tell the Guyanese nation to expect general elections soon, because all the money was put into projects that have had trouble in the past and GuySuCo is no exception.
While many of the sugar workers were fooled and taken in front of Parliament to protest for GuySuCo’s cause, the Ministers of the Government, MPs and several other persons from PPP echoed the sentiment of ‘don’t let the industry go or our families will starve’, ‘don’t rob us of bread and butter for our children’ so that Guyana could feel for the workers, who were really being used by the PPP/C for a bad cause.
As I reflect on that protest, I am wondering, are GuySuCo and the Government serious about the future of the industry? Well, it’s hard to answer that, because they say something and do something else, and many fall for their petty words that have no power and meaning.
GuySuCo and the Government should now tell the Guyanese people how much money was wasted on that protest. How many workers were paid for the day and did not work? What was the turnout and amount of cane harvested on that day? How much the transportation cost and who paid the trucks that took the workers? How much the water and buns cost and who paid for it? And after all that, tell us what is the actual amount of money GuySuCo lost on that day alone, so we will know if the Government and GuySuCo are serious about the sugar industry.
It must be noted that the leadership of GuySuCo and GAWU stayed away from the sugar workers’ protest and that tells me another thing; that is, workers are being used to garner money for an entity that’s failing and paying its bosses super salaries, but the bosses have no time to protest for the ailing industry.
This brings me to a serious issue that is taking place in the industry.  Workers have been home recently, protesting and striking for more money, since Saturday, April 12, and none of the PPP/C’s hard-talking ministers at the protest are helping and protesting with the workers for their cause.  GuySuCo has now lost millions because of this strike and no one within the Government and GAWU seems to care and fight for the rights of the workers.
Workers must now ask themselves which side is GAWU on. We all know the answer.
The PPP will continue to use sugar workers because they feel the workers belong to them and they can do what they want.  I call on the Ministers and other PPP officials who used the workers, to come out now and condemn the action of GuySuCo and the misrepresentation by GAWU towards the sugar workers. The workers are now very sad that they joined in a protest that has no benefit for them, and today, no one from the PPP seems to care.
The AFC has continued its fight for the sugar workers, and I expect its leaders to not allow the recent abuse by some of those workers on Mr. Nagamootoo to be a problem. Many of the workers told me they are sorry because they were misled. The workers know that they can count on the party.
I call on the AFC to seriously consider challenging GAWU for the rights to representing the sugar workers, in this way we will see better representation for our brothers and sisters in the industry.
Abel Seetaram

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