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GAWU precipitated the demise of the sugar industry

Dec 09, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
As a former GAWU General Council member from 1991-2000, at every meeting each field secretary has to report on the various estates each represents. I was the representative for the rice industry on the Essequibo Coast and its workers at CARICOM RICE MILLS LTD.
Sugar played the biggest role in all these meetings. These officers came from the various estates and will report on everything from theft, corruption and mismanagement to over payments. At almost every meeting I heard these field officers’ report to the President and General Secretary of the union about the high salaries being paid to members of the board, and to ghost workers on the estates payroll. But the union bosses turned a blind eye to these reports.
The high salaries paid to top bracket management staff and the waste of money to contractors—one job is being paid for twice and sometimes thrice. Guysuco was a milking cow, yet the president of the union did nothing to arrest the situation.
All these estates began to backslide in production. From 2000 they became non- profitable, according to the reports. Guysuco had to find salaries for 18,000 field and factory workers, cane harvesters and service providers along with private contractors. The bills were hefty and the union did nothing. The leaders knew why, because the union was benefitting.
The union was also milking Guysuco calling for unreasonable increases for the workers. GAWU helped to kill the sugar industry with 300 wildcat strikes a year. How can any industry make production targets and survive under those conditions, the more strikes called it is better for the union. When the workers get a hefty increase, the union benefits from union dues and fat salaries for the union bosses. The president and the GS do not negotiate their salaries, the workers eating the crumbs.
In 2000, the IMF/World Bank offered a solution to the union. For Government (Guysuco) to avoid retrenchment the aim was to merge two East Demerara estates. The closed estates workers would fit into LBI and Enmore. The IMF/WORLD BANK also purposed new fertile and virgin lands in the Molesen Creek area with a new variety of canes to boost production.
That would increase production. The price for sugar fell which meant Guysuco could compete on the world market. All these recommendations were rejected by the government and the union.
The government and union was fooling the workers, they staved off all the proposals saying, if two East Demerara estates were closed business would be dead and people would be made to suffer. There will be no high inflow of money in those areas and retrenchment will creep into families; homes would be broken up.
The best plan that I saw was the HD Hoyte- Booker Tate and Lyle plan to resuscitate the industry. The dairy industry came on stream with a pasteurized milking plan at Kingston and 1000 of acres of land given to GLADCO to grow rice and grass for the cows in the Berbice River.
All these were thrown out by the last administration. Now 2000 workers are on the breadline; what a sad day for sugar workers and their families. The new government should halt this wholesale retrenchment and find a way out to help these sugar workers.
Mohamed Khan.

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