Cane planters and other workers attached to the East Demerara Estate staged another protest outside the entity’s Enmore operations on Tuesday. This action follow the estate’s management reported demands that the employees undertake cane-cutting tasks which they have rejected, since they are cane planters and not cutters. The frustrated workers from the Enmore Estate took their concerns to the Head Office of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) and expressed great anger over the prevailing situation.
Workers protested the Enmore Estate on Tuesday
GAWU disclosed that on Friday last, it met with members of the Guyana Sugar Corporation’s (GuySuCo) Industrial Relations Department and the Estate Management, where it was concluded that the planters would be offered “alternative work”. These included; like engagement in the factory, rat baiting, infield weeding, and canal cleaning. However, GAWU alleges that the Estate’s management on Monday, advised workers that only cane cutting tasks would be provided to them.
Six of the aggrieved planters met with Labour Minister Keith Scott and Chief Labour Officer Charles Ogle, where six of the planters and the Union’s General Secretary Seepaul Narine. According to GAWU, the Minister suggested that “an audience be sought with Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder as he is responsible for agriculture”.
GAWU sees the workers’ treatment as similar to that at Wales.
“The compulsion for the Enmore/LBI planters to cut canes is strikingly similar to what GuySuCo is doing with the workers of Wales in compelling them to take up work at Uitvlugt Estate. More and more, it seems, we are seeing a return of forced labour in the sugar industry. That atrocious system perfected under colonialism,” GAWU stated strongly.
Earlier this month, GAWU suggested the estate may be on GuySuCo’s chopping block. The entity’s management had instructed that workers must proceed with cane cutting operations. However, this followed the disclosure that the Estate will no longer offer work for cane planting.
As such, some of the workers had called for severance pay as their traditional tasks were no longer required. Guyana Times was told that as per norm, in each plot, 20 per cent new canes are planted and the remainder is left for old canes to grow back. However, as the cane planting had ended, GAWU felt that this signalled that GuySuCo was gearing up to close down operations at the entity.
The Union had explained that it learnt that GuySuCo was proceeding with plans to end cane planting at the East Demerara and the Rose Hall Estates, as the Sugar Corporation’s CEO has requested an urgent meeting to discuss the development.
