Rose Hall Sugar Estate workers protest over non-payment of end-of-crop bonus

Workers attached to the Rosehall Sugar Estate on Thursday downed tools and took to the street in protest over the nonpayment of a promised one-week end-of-crop bonus.
The money is normally paid to factory workers two weeks after the crop ends. The first crop ended three weeks ago and management of the estate on Thursday met with the workers’ union representatives during which it was disclosed that GuySuCo had no money to pay the workers the promised bonus.
The two sides had previously met last week and GuySuCo promised that the one-week bonus would be paid to the workers on Friday.
One of the workers’ union representatives of the four departments in the factory Jairaj Ramotar related that during the meeting they enquired when the money would be paid, and were informed by management of the estate that no fixed date had been set.
Upon relating this to the workers, about two-thirds of the workforce stopped working and walked out of the factory and onto the road in protest.
Deidra Kelly, another union representative for one of the departments told the Guyana Times that the workers are demanding that they receive more definite information.
” I don’t think anything is going on in the factory because it is tools down,” she said.
Currently, the factory is undergoing routine maintenance during the out-of-crop period. The strike according to Ramotar would have no impact on production.
However, some of the workers stated that their representatives had let them down and should have demanded a timeline from the management of the estate.
Sheik Muhammed, a fitter machinist attached to the factory argued that the estate should stick to the promise it made to them last week.
“We make plans with our families to get things and to get things done. It is not fair for us at the bottom to get nothing and the managers are getting their money and their things ahead of us. We at the bottom are the ones that are suffering. We are working hard for our family and we expect to get our money.”
A total of 157 workers were engaged in the factory’s operations on Thursday. Of that, 106 walked out in protest.
Rosehall Estate had a target of 3,190 tonnes of sugar for the first crop and was able to make 1,779 tonnes thus representing a shortfall of almost 50 per cent.
The money required to pay the bonus to the workers attached to the East Berbice Estates, which also includes factory workers from the Albion Estate, amounts to about $300 million.
Efforts by this publication to get a comment from the management of the Rosehall Estate proved futile.