Is GuySuCo Board and management bold enough not to continue carrying on as if it is business as usual?

Jun 28, 2022 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Two letters in the press on a particular matter recently caught my attention.
As if by coincidence, both letters from two different people, from two different perspectives but with the same philosophical outlook on the same matter appeared in the letter columns of S/N edition of June 18, 2022.
The first letter was in the name of E.B. John in which he briefly discussed the meeting between the President and the top management of Guysuco. In his letter, Mr. John offers the following advice to GuySuCo’s management team; ‘An organisation requires collective thinking and action. In the latter regard older managers may be reminded of the ‘Worker Participation’ model.
The second letter was from Mr. Sherwood Clarke, General President of the Clerical and Commercial Workers’ Union (CCWU). In his letter Mr. Clarke states; ‘A development strategy should be designed to put the workers eventually in control of economic power within the Private Sector. Workers must cease being passive wage-earners, mere tools of production within the economy, and become involved in enterprises as managers, owners, and decision-makers.’
To my understanding, workers’ participation in decision-making is applicable to public and some private sector enterprises. It envisages; supervision by workers, proper accounting, effective distribution of workers in the production and distribution of goods, overseeing the performance of workers, elimination of wasteful efforts, reduction of costs as well as the efficient management of the enterprise. It enhances management’s influence through the flow of communications at the top level as well as improved information flow and the quality of decisions. It also increases the influence of workers in the participative system of a given enterprise.
Writing in his book ‘Worker Participation In Company Profits Or Operating Results in Latin America,’ Andres Marinakis points out; ‘Systems of worker participation in the operating results call for the direct involvement of the workers themselves and of the trade unions in various aspects of the process (from identification of the strategic variables to follow-up of their application). The essential need for dialogue between the parties and transparency of the process make these programmes a valuable means of establishing more participative human resources policies and less conflictive labour relations, which are much more in keeping with the need to improve company competitiveness.’
Whether this model can be pursued at GuySuCo following its top management meeting with the President and bearing in mind what remains as regards the corporation’s Human Resources and its infrastructure, is left to be seen.
In the meanwhile, the President of GAWU has already expressed his union’s doubts about the management’s ability to turn the corporation around so long as the current CEO remains in place. As far as the Union is concerned, a turnaround of the industry is possible but not with the current CEO. Moreover, from all indications, the manual on workers’ participation at GuySuCo is certainly not in the sitting CEO’s back pocket.
GuySuCo’s housekeeping matters aside, care should be taken when assessing success or no success in respect to the model of participation and control lest we succumb to the false notion that the model of participation and control failed when in fact, it was never really tried in Guyana and thus the question why go back to a model that failed?
In this regard, a recent attempt by workers and their union to clinch ownership and control of PETROTRIN in Trinidad and Tobago’s oil drilling, refining and gas distribution arrangements is instructive.
‘According to Dr. Anthony Gonzalez, former lecturer at the University of the West Indies at St. Agustine; ‘I think PETROTRIN found itself in serious debt from bad investments in two projects which never got off the ground. In addition, it refined imported crude very inefficiently. It was heavily overstaffed and salaries were too high.
The oil exploration and gas distribution parts were profitable and were used to support the loss-making refining part. The Government therefore broke up the company and kept oil exploration and gas distribution. The refinery was put up for sale and the workers won the initial bid.
However, in finalising the transaction, the workers’ company did not satisfy the expectations of the Government. They were given 10 years to pay off for the company with a moratorium, but the Government held the lien on the assets until they paid for it. The workers objected. The workers’ union got a foreign company to put up US$500m for refurbishing the refinery with some guarantee on the assets of the company.
In the end, the union did not seem capable of raising sufficient money from the bank without the lien released to invest in start up and operating cost. The Government then refused to go through with the deal and put the company out for another bid.
A US company Quanten won the new bid and the Government is now finalising an agreement with Quanten.
From all appearances, it was clear that the Government really wanted to sell the Company Petrotrin to the workers but they could not come up in the end with a proper financial offer. Purchase, refurbishing and operating costs came up to over US$1billion. The workers union did not have that kind of financial backing even with some foreign participation to meet that costs.
Truth be told, Guyana’s past experiences on the subject of workers’ participation and control proved unworthy, but that was because there was no genuine effort by the Burnham administration to put even the slightest modicum of the concept in place neither at the Bauxite nor sugar industries.
In effect, both bauxite and sugar workers were betrayed by the Burnham administration. After all, the workers had been promised that with nationalisation of the sugar and bauxite industries, the government would pursue a policy of workers participation and control.
However, contrary to its declared pro-working class policy, the much touted worker participation and control of the nationalised sugar and bauxite industries never materialised, instead a parasitic, bureaucratic elite emerged at the management level at both industries. They eventually became masters of the nationalised companies.
The non-implementation of what was promised resulted in great discontent amongst the bauxite workers, that discontent, coupled with fraudulent union election led to a general strike in the bauxite industry in December 1976.
In 1977, a 13-week strike by sugar workers virtually crippled the sugar industry. A poll was conducted ending in GAWU being recognised at the Union representing sugar workers nationwide.
Since workers in bauxite and sugar realised that government’s promise for their participation and control was but an empty one, they opted to use the only weapon they had at their disposal to achieve their legitimate objectives.
The struggles of bauxite and sugar workers continue to this day though under much different conditions especially where the oil and gas industries pose an existential threat to the longevity of these two once upon a time thriving industries whose nationalisation under a pretentious working class government, and whose productive output brought so much joy and happiness to many Guyanese.
The advise offered by Messrs John and Clarke is neither irrelevant nor outdated, they remain as valid and efficacious as they were in a hitherto era.
The big question is: Is the Board and management at GuySuCo bold and courageous enough not to continue carrying on as if it is business as usual?

Yours faithfully,
Clement J. Rohee

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