Ex-sugar workers to Granger: “Sit with us, feel our pain”

…as desperation kicks in as a result of collapsing economic situation

By Samuel Sukhnandan

An ex-employee of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) is urging President David Granger and his Cabinet Ministers to give up being transported in their luxury vehicles for one day and instead meet with the fired workers, to have a better understanding of the issues they face and their families.

Glen McCloud, an ex-employee of the Rose Hall Estate, said only then will the Government be able to realise the effects of the unconscionable decision they have taken, not only to close sugar estates, but to downsize the industry, putting thousands of people on the breadline.
“Don’t come on the television and talk nonsense that God want this or that. Come and sit with the people. Feel and see where it hurts most, then you are going to realise what is going on. But when you come and tell we this and that and jump in your fancy vehicle and gone, it’s like out of sight out of mind.”
McCloud who was accompanied by a small group of ex-workers at the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) headquarters in Georgetown on Wednesday; spoke extensively about the issues facing persons affected by the retrenchment and what could be done to reverse the hardships.
While a lot of non-governmental organisations have already reached out to affected communities, McCloud said no one from Government ever made an effort to meet with the ex-employees on the ground. “Instead, they getting on the television and telling you about jobs and gas and oil,” he stated.

And although a commitment was made by Government to provide land spaces to these ex-employees to cultivate other crops, they are yet to deliver on this promise. McCloud said, “Up to today we don’t know where the land is. Nobody has gotten on back to us. All they doing is to get on the television and tell the people what they want but let them tell the public the reality and the truth of it.”
“All we are asking them to do is to come and see where it hurt most. Nothing hurts a man or a family or a father like when your kid gets up in the morning and cry, and when you look at them and you can’t do anything. They know what is depression? They know what frustration is?”
McCloud said he finds it disturbing that the Government which sent large delegations a few days ago to meet with workers came empty handed. The visitors, he said, came just to make speeches filled with sweet words and to take photographs.
“Not one of them took the time to walk the villages and see the evident deterioration which has stepped in the communities; to look us in our eyes and to explain to us why they took such terrible decisions; and to visit our homes, to see firsthand the paucity of rations, and to see the hardships we and our families face.”
McCloud said while the advice on how to utilise their severance pay is welcomed, he believes that people are being misled to believe that it is a substantial amount. He said investing $500,000 into a long-term employment option is highly

impossible, especially when certain considerations are taken into account.
“Workers simply do not know what to do. We spend our days moving from street to street, village to village, and business to business seeking jobs. Some of us have looked far and wide but simply cannot find one or one with pay that you can survive on,” he explained.
Even some workers who have secondary and technical education have found securing a job difficult. And, in those per chance instances where workers do manage to find a job, they confront the stark reality that it is temporary and their wages are far below what they earned in the sugar industry.

Unfair
Another former employee of GuySuCo, who has given over two decades of his service to the industry, decried the manner in which Government went about its reconfiguration and downsizing plans. Glendon Grant described this move as “unfair”, especially when one is to take into account the social and economic implications this decision has had on many communities countrywide.
“We area in East Canje depends primarily on sugar, the whole of Skeldon and Rose Hall, the whole rural area. That is what we grow up on. And we got so much people done not working and some more people by March month would get them severance and that is it,” he explained.
The ex-sugar worker said by downsizing the industry, the Government has now affected thousands of people’s livelihoods and things could only get worse going forward.
Grant who spoke passionately about the challenges he and his colleagues face said its only time before more people start turning to suicide and other social ills to deal with their problems.
A former worker of the Wales Sugar Estate said the situation is now having a negative effect on the family unit in many rural communities like his, since there have been several instances where housewives have left their unemployed husbands.
He said not only are people worried about how they will pay their mortgage, but also their hire purchase bills, electricity, water and other utilities.
“Now with the severance you might be able to patch up lil holes that yah got but how long that will last? I got but seven or 10 friends and them man wife left them the other day. When you get a porter work, give you for a week. It’s a lot of things we got on we head to study. We got children to go to school and that’s why we wife leffing we and we have to hold up.”
The group of former GuySuCo employees from almost all of the estates is also urging Government to reconsider its decision to close the estates and have them reemployed with the Corporation.