…demand immediate severance payments
…call on Judiciary to speed up court case following GT article
By Samuel Sukhnandan
Hundreds of former cane harvesters of the Wales Sugar Estate picketed the Ministry of the Presidency (MoTP) and the High Court on Thursday as they called on the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition Government to pay their long overdue severance immediately, as they declared that President David Granger’s Government had failed them.
This picketing exercise added to the mounting complaints and massive denunciation the coalition Government has already received over the past few
Several fired cane harvesters holding up placards during the peaceful picketing exercise held outside the Ministry of the Presidency
months, since the announcement of the downsizing of the sugar industry and the firing of thousands of workers whose livelihoods depend on this key sector.
It also following a breaking story carried in the Guyana Times on Wednesday where the dismissed Wales Sugar Workers complained bitterly about not being paid their severance despite the fact that two years have elapsed. The workers also called on Komal Chand to make a statement as they claimed that they had not seen or heard from him in a while.
During the picketing, workers held up placards with slogans; one reading, “Wales cutters are discriminated re: severance, sugar production at Wales ended. Severance pay follows, Wales cutters have children to feed, debt to settle. Do not
Former cane harvester of Wales Sugar Estate, Eon Fernandes
punish us longer, and TESPA says we are entitled to our severance.”
According to most of them, while the Wales’s Estate was the first to close its doors, close to two years later they are still awaiting their severance. They see it as an unfair move, one that should have caused the Government to make a conscious decision to pay all cane harvesters their severance.
An upset worker, Romeo Charles, who served for over two decades at the estate, told Guyana Times that he is saddened with the manner in which cane harvesters are being treated. The father of seven said it has also been difficult to secure full-time employment ever since he was fired.
“I deh working all ova the place when I could find a job and deh wuking to sustain my family. Me ain’t got no fixed job at the present moment. Anybody that call me to give me a wuk is that what I doing. I need a money to maintain mah family. And if I get me severance, I would do something good with it.”
Unfortunately, Charles said he felt secure working with GuySuCo and never ventured to learn any new skills; as such, he is untrained to work in construction and other fields. This, he said, is one of the reasons why he and many of his former colleagues are finding it difficult to get employment.
Charles was also joined by his teenage son who attends the Goed Fortuin Secondary, saying he could not afford to send the teen to school on Thursday because the passage alone is over $500 daily. “You have to find that passage for him every day and many of days I does can’t send he. It really hard pun we.”
Another disgruntled worker was very critical of the Government’s handling of the issue regarding severance, stating that they are unreasonable and inhumane to the suffering of the sugar workers. The ex-GuySuCo employee said Government should have seen it fit to pay workers across the board.
“We need severance because we got family to maintain… the other two estates get their severance and we need our severance. How this Minister them getting their fat salary. Just like that we need we money…The President say he building the ‘good life’ for the Guyanese people. This is the good life? This is the starvation life. They (Government) making a good life form themselves with that 50 per cent raise.”
The father of three said it has been extremely difficult on him because he is the breadwinner of his family and has to provide for a wife and three school-aged children.
Meanwhile, another former long-serving employee of GuySuCo, Eon Fernandes, told Guyana Times that he has turned to farming on a part-time basis ever since being fired but this has proven to be difficult, since there are always problems with irrigation and there is not a huge market for agriculture. He too is demanding his severance pay, stating that he will not give up fighting for what rightfully belongs to him.
“GuySuCo and the Government tek they eyes and pass the workers of Wales cane cutters. Wales Estate close since 2016. This is 2018 and up to now they ain’t give we no money. We need we severance because we ain’t wuking right now. We is poor people and we need to put food on the table,” he stated.
The workers were also joined by People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Members of Parliament, Dr Frank Anthony and Juan Edghill, who said they will continue to show solidarity to the aggrieved workers.
Court hearing
Amid all the criticisms and calls for severance to be paid with immediate effect, the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) is pushing for a date to be set for a court hearing regarding the severance pay for ex-employees of the Wales Sugar Estate.
GAWU promised to put pressure on both Government and the courts to move swiftly to have the matter involving the former cane harvesters of that estate heard as speedily as possible.
The union complained that the matter is still to be heard in the court which he finds very strange, but promised to fight on with the sugar workers until something is done.
GAWU’s lawyer, Ashton Chase had compiled and filed documents for the matter regarding the non-payment of severance packages to hundreds of sugar workers to be called up at the High Court.
Prior to the closure of the Wales estate in 2016, GuySuCo had offered the cane harvesters work at the Uitvlugt Estate, but the workers with support from the union turned down the offer.
The workers and GAWU argument was that it would have been uneconomical for the workers to travel beyond 10 miles for work, and that there was not enough harvesting at the estate to cater for the large workforce that Wales intended to send home.
The Wales Estate closure was rationalised by Government as a cost-saving measure due to billions of dollars that was allocated to the declining sugar industry. Since then, the scaling down of other estates across the country has been taking its course.
