The continued assault on sugar workers and sugar by the APNU+AFC

Aug 11, 2019 Letters

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Dear Editor,

The Finance Minister proudly declared the diversification of the sugar industry is on hold. We have heard nothing more about the privatization of the closed sugar estates. They have said nothing about the $30B loan burden they placed on GUYSUCO, the people of Guyana are totally in the dark what happened to the money, while more than a billion dollars have been paid in interest.
Sugar workers and the Sugar Industry (SUGAR) are under siege. APNU+AFC targeted SUGAR from day one, not recognizing that it was some of these workers themselves that helped APNU+AFC win the government in 2015. APNU+AFC was determined from day one in May 2015 to demoralize the people from areas they see as PPP strongholds. Guyana’s sugar industry, like those in other parts of the world, does have its difficulties. But SUGAR remains an important part of Guyana’s economic and social welfare infrastructure. Guyana’s sugar industry still has a critical role to play in a Guyana that hopes to solidify its status as a high middle-income, middle-development country. In the foreseeable future, poverty will rise without SUGAR, OIL or NO OIL. It is sheer idiocy to downsize or to close SUGAR.
As new election is imminent, the Future of SUGAR is a make or break issue for political parties. APNU+AFC has lost any moral ground it may have operated from in 2015. It has broken every single promise it made to sugar workers. It cannot send in surrogates like Moses Nagamootoo and Khemraj Ramjattan to fool sugar workers since both of them have betrayed the sugar workers and are pariahs in those communities. Charandass and Dr. Ramayah who facilitated Nagamootoo and Ramjattan are attesting to the betrayal. The PPP has a track record of supporting SUGAR and sugar workers, standing with the industry and the workers and their families, even if some of the workers would have wanted them to do even more.
Presently sugar workers at Albion are on strike. As usual, APNU+AFC is pretending the striking sugar workers do not exist. The Minister of Agriculture is silent, paying no heed. The Minister of Business perhaps is unaware he should have an interest in these workers. Not only is Albion Sugar Estate an important business entity, the village economy, with its small businesses, such as market vendors, grocery stores, the taxi drivers, the seamstress, barbers etc., usually ground to a halt when sugar workers are off the job. The Minister with responsibility for Labour is in “lala” land. The President could care less.
These sugar workers, like sugar workers at Blairmont and Uitvlugt, have had their wages frozen at the 2014 level. After more than four years, under APNU+AFC, sugar workers have not had any wage increase, none for 2015, none for 2016, none for 2017, none for 2018 and none so far for 2019. Once before, under Forbes Burnham, in the 1980s, sugar workers had their wages frozen. For the period 1992 to end 2014, under the PPP, sugar workers received an annual wage increase every single year. It is, therefore, not a surprise that these sugar workers are agitated and taking action to highlight their plight.
But the now 5-year long frozen wage increase issue is not the only problem affecting sugar workers. In the case of Albion Sugar Estate, there was the recent arbitrary increase in the weekly target from 2100 tons to 2140 tons. The arbitrary increase in the production target is intended to rob sugar workers of their weekly production bonus by making it difficult to impossible to reach the target. In the meanwhile, certain category of workers have had their payment for certain tasks downgraded and working conditions made more onerous. The situation at Albion is no different at Blairmont and Uitvlugt.
The frozen wage increase and the erosion in other benefits come amidst an upcoming general elections, when these workers expect they will hear promises like the ones they heard before the 2015 elections. There was the now infamous promise sugar workers deserved a 20% annual increase in wages and benefits, the lowering of targets for production bonuses etc. None of these promises were kept, but even more egregious and insulting is that these workers have been deprived the annual increases and production target bonus they were used to. There was the promise that no estate would be closed, yet four of the seven estates were brutally closed, bringing untold poverty to those communities.
After four years in Government, after seeing the importance of SUGAR, with the backdrop of punishing poverty exploding in the communities surrounding the closed sugar estates, one would have hoped APNU+AFC would have a conscience. Clearly, the downsizing of GUYSUCO from seven operating factories to just three, the downsizing of the employee pool by more than 7,000 workers, were the beginning of a process to close SUGAR entirely.
I expect Uitvlugt is on the chopping block and there is a high possibility that Blairmont will follow. Should APNU+AFC still control government in 2020, these estates are at high risk.
Dr. Leslie Ramsammy

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