GAWU to continue to agitate over closure of sugar estate

…members “nervous” about future

the Guyana Agriculture and General Workers Union (GAWU) has vowed to cripple planned efforts to close the East Demerara Estate (Enmore Estate), in the name of restructuring.

GAWU President Komal Chand told Guyana Times on Monday that the Union was in the process of amassing workers to take to the streets in massive protests against this move.

Chand said while the Government had made the proposal to close the Estate, it did not clearly state if it would go ahead with those plans. However, GAWU members are of the opinion that the Estate will be closed.

“The information we are getting from the ground is that this will be a reality, because already, they are not doing a lot of important work to have the Estate functional next year,” Chand explained.

The top GAWU official, who met with sugar workers on Friday, told Guyana Times that members were nervous about their future and about securing alternative employment.

While the Union has been engaged in some level of protests over the past week, particularly in Enmore, Chand stated that the numbers were likely to grow in coming weeks and months.

“They hope that they will draw support from the residents and others, with the view to build a strong protest because that might be one of the ways to get Government to rethink its position,” he added.

Chand explained that if the protest attracted enormous crowds like the parking meter project protests in Georgetown, it would send a strong message to the coalition Government.

He also pointed to the situation in French Guiana, where citizens came out in large numbers to protest high unemployment, crime, high cost of living and a lack of investment from France.

While the Government has promised to present a white paper on the sugar industry to Parliament, Chand believes it is deliberately delaying, so that the issue would be debated by the end of 2017.

“The Government is trying not to bring the official position to the public and one of the reasons is because they want the matter brought by yearend,” he told this publication.

As it stands, there is much resentment in the sugar belt and workers are highly demotivated, Chand said. This is mostly owing to the fact that they have much uncertainty about their future.

“They have not received any increases for the past two years. The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) is now complaining about poor turnout. They are so demotivated,” he added.

GuySuCo has long complained that poor labour turnout has contributed to reduced sugar production.

The industry is facing its toughest times with production just over 180,000 tonnes last year. This is the lowest production GuySuCo has recorded since 1990.

A decision was taken last year to close the oldest estate, Wales, on the West Bank Demerara.

The operations have since partially been integrated with the Uitvlugt Estate.

Workers attached to the now defunct Wales Estate are still awaiting full payment of outstanding severance package benefits.

Government had said the Wales Estate was closed after billions of dollars were accrued in losses over the years. At high-level sugar consultations held last year between Government, GuySuCo, the Union and the Opposition, the Administration had disclosed that only three estates would be kept functional.

Sugar has remained one of the biggest foreign currency earners, along with rice and gold in Guyana. (Samuel Sukhnandan)