There is need for a comprehensive national plan of action to be developed and implemented that would address some of the immediate social and economic consequences of Government’s decision to close several sugar estates and dismiss thousands of ordinary and hardworking Guyanese.
Such a plan could be drafted, even at this stage, with the help of a multi-stakeholder Committee that has representatives from the Guyana Agriculture and General Workers Union, the National Association of Agricultural and Industrial Employees, the Government of Guyana, Civil Society, the Guyana Private Sector Commission, the Guyana Bankers Association and the National Insurance Scheme.
The Committee could be tasked with visiting some of the areas where sugar estates have been ordered closed and assessing the impact of these closures with a view of making recommendations to cushion the impact while easing the burden on families of those 3, 647 dismissed workers. It could also explore organizing community meetings with workers to get feedback on the challenges they are facing since being made redundant or losing their jobs.
The Committee’s terms of reference could include exploring the pros and cons of providing dismissed workers with a monthly stipend on which they can survive for a six-month period as they make attempts to retrain and re-qualify themselves to enter new fields in the world of work. This stipend could be useful too as workers seek out other opportunities and financial programmes in order to establish their own businesses and private ventures.
Outside of the work that the Committee would undertake, the plan of action must also include providing workers with some form of subsidized water and electricity until they can manage to get back on their two feet. Special consideration should also be given to the school-aged children of dismissed workers and therefore a proposal could be made to provide them with free transportation to and from school over a defined period. Mental Health and Counselling services should be offered routinely to these families as they go through this period of hardship.
If Government is seriously concerned about the welfare of these dismissed workers, then it must be willing to accept from the onset that it has not treated the workers with fairness and respect. It should also be willing to admit that it took the wrong approach by not conducting an impact assessment of consequences of downsizing the industry and closing three estates would have on the rural economies of these communities and the country as a whole.
Finally, the Government has to demonstrate political maturity by ending the blame game. It has to recognize that it has serious work to do in all of these communities that have been and will continue to be devastated by the sudden shift in the organization and structure of the sugar industry. It can also regain the trust and respect of the workers by personally establishing the Committee and implementing its recommendations while simultaneously implementing core aspects of the findings of the Commission of Inquiry Report and along with the key proposals from the State Paper presented by Agriculture Minister Noel Holder on the future of the Sugar Industry.
At this point, the Government needs to soften its tone. Sugar workers are suffering and hurt because they believe that they were collateral damage. It has to instruct its members to choose their language carefully as they engage workers being cognizant of the sensitivities surrounding the issue. The Government must appear more compassionate and genuine or it runs the risk of appearing spiteful, indifferent and unmoved by the circumstances that the former workers will now face.
The immediate establishment of the Committee and a general shift in the Government’s approach to the restructuring of the industry should also mark the end of the piecemeal implementation of confusing policies aimed at responding to the crisis now facing thousands of dismissed workers.
