ECONOMIC SECURITY FOR SUGAR WORKERS IS IMPERATIVE

By Moses Nagamootoo & Sasenarine Singh

Today, June 16, marks 65 years since five sugar workers – Rambarran, Lall a/k Pooran, Lallabagee, Surujbally and Harry, were killed by British colonial police, The Five are revered as the “Enmore Martyrs”.
In 1948, the Enmore Martyrs fought for favourable conditions of work and for union recognition. Their sacrifice eventually won the latter, which ironically came under threat in 2010 when, under the Jagdeo-PPP regime, the sugar union GAWU was threatened with de-recognition. At that time Nanda Gopaul, now Minister of Labour, and Donald Ramotar, now President, were directors of the sugar corporation.
Since Enmore, the sugar industry came a far way. Many gains have been made for the workers. Colonial plantation ownership has been replaced by state control and direction of an industry that was the reason for slavery and indentureship. Today, however, changes in the sugar trade protocols together with mismanagement and political incompetence have torn the industry apart. Sugar workers are on the bread-line again, struggling not only for improved conditions of work but, this time, for survival.
If the cold-blooded and calculated suppression of a peaceful industrial protest in 1948 shocked the conscience of those who were indifferent to the plight of sugar workers, today the near financial bankruptcy of the industry and uncertainty in the sugar belt cry out for national attention.
The primary responsibility for this parlous state lies with the post-Jagan PPP Government. It is a sad but true reality that the PPP leaders continue to see sugar workers merely as a bloc, ethnic vote. For them, political “loyalty” is more important than putting bread on the table of the workers and their large families.
ECONOMIC SECURITY
Since 2010, as a son of the sugar belt, Moses Nagamootoo summoned Guyana to “light a candle for sugar workers” for which the PPP cabal had threatened to expel him. He has joined with genuine patriots in the Alliance For Change (AFC) who do not share the PPP’s narrow interest. The AFC is committed to long term economic security in the sugar belt.
How does the AFC hope to achieve this?
For a start, the sugar industry ought to produce ethanol. The AFC Action Plan advocates a National E10 (10% blend of ethanol into gasoline) which would immediately enhance the cash-flows in the industry. Workers’ wages would be guaranteed.
The AFC would transform the sugar belt from a subsistence level industry, with “slave-like” conditions of employment, to a value added industry that focuses on mechanized harvesting, ethanol production, packaged sugar and alcohol production.
The party would create new job opportunities in the industry rather than put people out of work. Between the years 1999 to 2012, direct employment in the industry shrunk by some 9,000. The marginalization of workers saw production drop from 325,317 tons of sugar in 2004 to 218,070 in 2012 – all-time lowest production.
ISSUES AND CONSTRAINTS
This decline in output is due to a combination of: (a) inappropriate Government policies which under-utilize and even waste scarce resources; negatively impacting on the corporation’s agricultural practices and factory maintenance programme; (b) loss of key line-management personnel and a declining labour participation due mainly to political interference and low wages and salaries and (c) a very poorly executed investment in the Skeldon Sugar Factory resulting in a legacy of mechanical defects.
At the field level, the best practice of replanting canes every five years has been abandoned. Workers are advising the AFC that the average period of replanting now ranges between eight and twelve years. The best practice of “flood fallowing” every five years (which requires land to lie flooded and fallow for 6-9 months to improve the structure of the soil, reducing the need for nitrogen fertilizer and assisting with the control of weeds, pest and disease) continues to be delayed.
Inadequate resources have resulted in drainage, irrigation and field infrastructure being neglected. These poor standards of maintenance in the industry continue to increase the water table, contributing to poor productivity, increasing the bagasse and trash content, and therefore reducing the cane quality delivered to the factory. At Enmore, the poor use of mechanical harvesters (whopper-choppers), for example, results in mud being deposited in the factory along with the harvested canes.
Our observation is supported by the GAWU, which cautioned that “there is a need for GuySuCo to pay cognizance of the neglect that occurred in the sugar industry…especially in the cane fields”. Union President Komal Chand pleaded for the industry to return to a state where “good quality cane can once again dominate the fields”.
The overall effect of these adverse factors is a sustained deterioration of the cane/sugar ratio from 10.88 in 2000 to 12.69 in 2012. It must be noted that the poor performance at the Skeldon Factory continues to compound an already difficult situation in the industry. Mr. Tony Vieira had highlighted that in the year 2012, it took “16.29 tons of cane to produce one ton of sugar at Skeldon” vs. a ratio of “10.52 at Albion”.
In 1990, the worst year in Guyana’s recorded sugar history, factories were grinding for a mean of 44% of the in-crop season. In 2012, it was reported that the factories were grinding for a mean of 50% of the in-crop season. By international standard, net grinding time should not be less than 80%.
Why are the sugar mills in Guyana grinding at such a low rate?
It is evident that the crisis in the sugar industry is due to poor and visionless leadership, which is why AFC has called for the entire Board of Directors to be revamped.
CASH FLOW SITUATION
The CEO of GuySuCo confirmed that the 2013 first crop production was the “lowest ever first crop on record” – just shy of 48,000 tons. This will translate to a further deterioration in the cash flow crisis at GuySuCo. It is crucial that management keep its eye on the Cash Flow reality, rather than on some nebulous set of targets and budgets. Every single decision, including capital investment, must be anchored in the cash flow reality on every estate. GuySuCo should no longer depend on bailout packages from taxpayers.
When Booker Tate took over the management contract in 1990, they recognized the most important input was the human resource. They increased the wages by over 200% between 1990 and 1992. This strategy reduced labour unrest significantly and saw an influx of new labour into the industry.
The AFC in its 2011 campaign demanded a 20% across the board increase in wages for all workers. The AFC has amended its demand to 10% for those at the bottom of the wage scale to stimulate a repeat of the labour relations success achieved by Booker Tate. The PPP overlords refused to budge.
The AFC has even mapped out how these increases could be funded — by charging NDIA a premium rate for technical assistance in times of flooding; re-negotiating the shipping contracts to secure better value; negotiating a reduction in the interest rates with the banks; boosting packaged sugar production; cutting administrative cost by weeding out multi-million-dollar perks for cronies; asking the Ministry of Commerce to foot the bill for Marketing and Distribution expenses; re-negotiating the pension’s agreement with the Unions; identifying more non-value added cost streams in the industry and weeding them out swiftly without political interference.
TURNAROUND PLAN
How long will the GuySuCo Board be allowed to tinker with the Turnaround Plan? It is the considered view of the AFC that the entire board should be fired forthwith; they are now negative equity to the industry. GuySuCo desperately needs a new board of seasoned talent, knowledge and competence.
The new Board members must have access to line managers to share ideas on a programme of rehabilitation and rationalization to enhance the efficiency on each estate by allowing them to contribute towards fixing the problem.
The end result from such a plan is that the GuySuCo Board, senior management and line-managers must have cash flow numbers per estate/cost centre on a weekly basis to make decision at different level.
PRACTICAL STRATEGIES
As the CEO had said, the “amount of cane planted is not enough” and “private farmers at Skeldon are hesitant and uneasy about growing more cane” because of the financial risks. What has the Government done about this reality?
Why not stimulate public/private partnership with the private planters to get all the new fields at Skeldon mechanized and planted within a defined time by using the billions from NICIL/LOTTO funds finally for a national project that is beneficial to the nation? Why not use these funds to leverage more funds from the banking sector to accelerate the mechanization and planting schedule to feed the Skeldon Factory?
The CEO of GuySuCo must be given the full freedom to act in the areas relevant to capping the financial leak. GuySuCo should consolidate the operations of more Estates, for example – one Administrative Manager for all of West Demerara and the same for East Demerara and sell some of the excess houses in the process.
FULL TRANSPARENCY
But before all of the above can materialize, the policy makers have to seek the buy-in from all the stakeholders, whether they are in the Unions, the Parliament, or the Private Sector. Now is the time for full transparency and to open GuySuCo’s books for the key stakeholders.
The AFC notes that the Minister of Finance announced that there is a new three-year turnaround plan for Guysuco for 2013-2016. Why not lay it in Parliament; publish it in the national newspapers to build a winning coalition around the solutions to save the industry?
AFC AGENDA
The AFC remains committed and focused on an agenda to protect the economic security of the sugar belt. We believe that an international Technical Mission should be invited to properly analyse GuySuCo with a view of recommending necessary value added measures to accelerate the implementation of the 2013-2016 Turnaround Plan. We continue to support all measures to enhance the agronomical practices in the field to boost yield; to plant more cane especially at Skeldon; to encourage cooperative/peasant cane farming; to overhaul the Skeldon Factory and finally to accelerate the mechanization programme. We must ensure that the children of sugar workers would work in an environment where skills and technology would be a requisite qualification, and not condemn them to be virtual mules in the fields, under the sun, cutting and fetching canes as the slaves and indentured workers have done. Should this continue, the sacrifice of the Enmore Martyrs would indeed be in vain.
The time to rebuild and modernise the sugar industry is now.  Too many lives depend on this!