Harvesters who were transferred from the Rose Hall Sugar Estate to Albion are on an eight-day strike in protest over being asked to cut and load cane in snake-infested fields, while management refuses to supply bell loaders, which will result in them just having to cut the cane and not risk the dangers of picking it up and taking it to load in a punt.
An Albion cane harvester holding up a snake which he found in his working area
It has been eight days since the cane has been burnt waiting to be harvested. More than 300 workers of 15B Gan, which is the leading harvesting gang at the Guyana Sugar Corporation, would start with a daily average of more than 100 punts of cane.
According to the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) Field Representative, Inderjeet Gopaul, the gang worked at Enterprise C fields one, two, three, four and five and after some negotiations with management because of the high number of poisonous snakes which were spotted in those fields, bell loaders were sent in to gather the cane and place in into the punts. However, management is refusing to do the same for field six.
Gopaul said when the workers were going into the field last Wednesday, they noticed two snakes in one of the punts. He said the workers refused to go any further. After killing the two reptiles, they again approached management.
“The manager go to see if he would see any snake…. Snake wouldn’t sit down and wait on manager. He did not see the two that was in the punt, any snake would go in the crack and hide.”
Meanwhile, one of the harvesters, Adrial Hall, feels the current situation, which has caused them to be off the job for eight days, is because of a personal issue management has with the workers who were transferred from Rose Hall.
He told Guyana Times that he was told by one of the managers that the Albion Estate was operating without them.
Harvey Tambron, who is GAWU’s Berbice representative and who has been representing sugar workers for decades says management at the Albion Estate could do much better but seem bent on suffering the workers.
He noted that after the workers were finished harvesting the canes from the first five fields, management sent the bell loaders to Skeldon.
“Skeldon is not harvesting any cane… They just sitting there, and the workers request that they use the bell loader in field six. The bell loader is the property of NICIL. They were sitting at Rose Hall and they borrow it and not using it just having them at Skeldon and the harvesters are not working.”
“It is simple all they had to do was to bring the bell loader and it would take one day in the field. It is only 8.8 hectors of cane. Management is using these workers as a scapegoat,” he said. (Andrew Carmichael)
