May 23, 2017  Source

GuySuCo warns it may be forced to close Uitvlugt estate

The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) has said that if the 375 cane-harvesters and cane-transporters of the Wales estate do not support the Uitvlugt Improvement Programme (UIP), it may be forced to close the estate.

In a letter published in this newspaper yesterday, Senior Communications Officer, Audreyanna Thomas said that the Uitvlugt Estate is the largest business in West Demerara and that if it is closed the businesses, families and the communities which receive drainage, health, other community development support and the 1,750 employees would be affected.

She also said that “GAWU [Guyana Agricultural & General Workers Union] will then seek to mobilize the West Deme-rara community against the closure [to protest] as in the case of Rose Hall Estate.”

As such, Thomas said in the letter, the corporation urged “sugar dependent communities, that at some point, the protest has to stop, and businesses, families members and other operatives in these communities, need to get out into their communities and encourage the planters and harvesters to go out to work and to work more than four days per week to ensure that their estates achieve their targets.”

This is the first time that GuySuCo has formally mentioned the possibility of closing the Uitvlugt estate following the closure of sugar operations at the Wales estate at the end of 2016 and its plans to close the Rose Hall, Canje and Enmore/LBI estates when the second crop ends in December.

The APNU+AFC coalition government confirmed plans to close the other two and to divest the Skeldon estate when it presented a White Paper on the future of GuySuCo in the National Assembly earlier this month.

Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, Thomas said if the workers accept GuySuCo’s offer to work on the cultivation at Uitvlugt they will significantly “boost the capacity there.”

She explained the UIP includes increasing production from 20,000 to 40,000 tonnes of sugar annually but it can only happen if the workers agree to be part of the programme.

Stressing that the workers need to be “more proactive, than reactive,” in reference to the protest actions, she said GuySuCo is trying to keep the workers on the payroll.

The cane-harvesters and transporters have insisted that they be paid their severance benefits, but GuySuCo’s argument is that if that happens their services would have to be terminated.

She pointed out that “ensuring job security is better than the one off payment” and that GuySuCo plans to mobilize the community to ensure that it supports UIP to make it a reality.

She lamented that the workers are being “influenced by GAWU in order to get severance.”

The union had told this newspaper that the workers are entitled to their severance benefits because the nearest estate to transfer them to, is located more than the 10-mile radius catered for by law.

The workers had said that they have to travel 22 miles daily to get to the Uitvlugt estate and another 16 miles to get into the backdam.

But Thomas maintained that the corporation is “not transferring them, they would remain on the Wales payroll.”

She said too that all of GuySuCo’s workers are provided with free: transportation to and from work, health care, safety equipment and tools among other benefits.

She also lamented that it was “nothing new, it is normal” when the crop ended for the workers to help other estates.

Currently, she said, the workers from Enmore are going to Blairmont and the ones from Skeldon are working at Albion, Rose Hall or Blairmont estates.

Legal right

President of GAWU, Komal Chand had said that GuySuCo is accusing “the union of not encouraging the workers “to go [to Uitvlugt] and are talking about our self-preservation.”

He had said it was “ironic” for GuySuCo to say that because “we would like as many people to remain in the union but we have a legal right to represent these people…”

Workers from the Rose Hall estate have continued to stage protest actions over the planned closure, and Thomas said this has resulted in them [workers] losing $7M and with GuySuCo suffering losses amounting to $17M for one day alone.

According to her, as a result of over 3,000 strike actions that were held from 2001 to 2016, the workers lost over $2B.

She said they cannot afford to keep losing like that and that the workers “need to move past the emotions and think how to rationally start the programme.”

She added that the corporation is “aware that we need to give people space to express their emotions and feelings, but they have to ensure that they still remain sober.”