Sugar worker dies on duty, but no compensation for family

DEAR EDITOR, About two weeks ago a young man employed by Guysuco Blairmont Estate died while at work in the backdam. According to the post mortem, the cause of death was drowning.  Therefore I can clearly and safely say that the young man died on duty at the Blairmont Estate by drowning. The thirty-two year-old man was living with his parents, and had no children. He was employed with Guysuco for about ten years as a planter and attached to QHE 1 gang at the said estate. A few days back, the management of Blairmont Estate called in the father of the young man for talks on compensation, but nothing came out of that meeting.  In fact, management of the estate is saying that if the young man has a wife they will create a job for her at the estate and that’s all they can do to compensate the family. They are saying that Guysuco has no money. It’s sad to see that young brothers are working for the betterment of themselves and Guysuco, but yet they are being treated time and time again as slaves for the industry.  One would have thought that this industry cares for the welfare of the families of the workers, but it clearly shows that this government and Guysuco have no time for the welfare of workers. All the family received from Guysuco is a quantity of items to the value of about ten thousand dollars for the wake and also the entity paid for the storage of the body for about four days. That’s all the management of this industry had to offer a worker’s family when that worker died on duty.  What happened to all the benefits that the workers ought to have if they died on duty? So Guysuco is saying to the workers in general, ‘we don’t care if you have ten, twenty, thirty years service with us and die on duty, there is nothing for your family to have except sending your wife to work with us’. The workers of this industry have now gone back to the days of slavery, when the masters would work them to death and offer nothing to the family when they died on duty. Is this what we want for our brothers and sisters?  Is this what we want for our families that lost their loved ones in the line of duty in the industry?  Is this what we want; to send our wives to be slaves in the sugar industry when the husband passes away? This is the time for the workers to stand up for their rights, because what goes for one will surely happen to the rest of them.  Where is the PPP/C top brass that used the workers to protest for Guysuco, telling the opposition that they are taking bread and butter out of the mouth of the families of the workers if they cut Guysuco’s budgetary allocation? Now let Guyana decide who are the ones taking bread and butter out of the mouth of this young man’s family. His father is a pensioner and mother a housewife, so who will cater for them now? Who will provide the bread and butter for the parents? How can this PPP/C administration claim that they are for the working class and yet they cannot see to it that the family of this young man who died on duty is compensated properly? Gone are the days of slavery. Abel Seetaram