“Political Struggle?” Changed Values!
Frankly Speaking, the majority of my working-class countrymen don’t make time to study, even consider the ramifications of the EU/Cariforum Economic Partnership Agreement. Or the grave implications of the sugar-workers strike.
That’s partly because the daily, stressful challenges of living in a depressed Guyana economy take up one’s existence so much, there is little time to devote to both the finer, artistic, recreational aspects of living, or the complexities of international issues. But those very issues impact on the sorry living too many of us experience and endure in this challenging society named Guyana.
And that is why today I’ll discuss sugar and the seemingly indispensable sugar-worker in Guyana today. Employing my simple, layman’s style and approach. It all was stimulated by a persuasive, insightful letter published in the Stabroek News of Friday August 29, 2008. It was over the name Joel Dashiyantha Prashad.
It could have come from politician Ravi Dev, a Guysuco Board member, a top Guysuco manager or PR person – or some concerned “oppositionist”. (I tend to believe that there is an actual Joel D. Prashad.) And because I am somewhat familiar with the positions of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) and the other “Sugar-Union”, NAACIE, after my representation of Mr. Prashad’s shared views, I will insist that my good friends at GAWU respond to the substantive points raised.
Sweet Sugar, Bitter Workers…
Just last Friday UG’s Prem Misir alluded to “sugar’s roller-coaster history in colonial times” in British Guiana. He wrote: “It’s an enigma (to believe) that something so sweet as sugar could engender such acrimony, poverty and inhumanity in societies like Guyana where sugar is the mainstay of the economy”.
That commentator was not referring to the recent worker-led strikes in the local Sugar Sector. Rather he was setting the background to point out that the modern day descendants of the old Colonial Sugar Barons were now intent on fashioning a trade agreement, replacing the ones crafted at Lome and Cotonou, which new agreement – the vaunted EPA – would inflict new penalties and disadvantages on poor producers like us.
Sugar indeed has had a colourful history of tradition, commerce, social and political upheaval in this land over three centuries. Despite its turbulence, however, the product remains Guyana’s best foreign-exchange earner, the country’s largest employer and the “benefactor” of thousands of sugar-worker dependents and is still vital to the country’s economic well-being.
Before I explain why I suspect the average sugar-worker knows this – and understands his almost-lofty indispensability, let me go back to Mr. J. Dashiyanta Prashad’s letter. Prashad, in his piece captioned “collective bargaining in the sugar industry is no more than an annual Charade”, makes a number of telling, hard-to-ignore points. I summarize a few hereunder because I need to be persuaded that Mr. Prashad is wrong, or guilty of flawed conclusions.
Firstly, he says, “it has become the norm in the sugar industry, for many years, where workers proceed on strike…without the union complying with the provisions of the collective labour agreement”. This is seen as a state of “industrial anarchy”. He doesn’t believe that the union is “surprised” by these wildcat strikes “since too much is at stake from a political perspective”. It is reminded that GAWU President Chand is a government MP and Central Executive of the PPP – and that government is a major share-holder of GUYSCO, the company under threat, when it loses millions through strikes, wildcat or “official”, by Chand’s members.
Two more telling quotes of this knowledgeable person’s views:
(1) “It would be interesting to see the outcome of the deliberations of this compulsory arbitration tribunal. Is it simply a smokescreen aimed at threatening the workers to resume work, and allow the main shareholder to use the tribunal to make an award, thereby bailing GAWU out of its usual morass?”
(2) Repeating GUYSUCO’s declaration that it was not “insensitive” to its workers economic conditions but was unable to meet GAWU’s ceiling demands. Prashad then asks: “Was the union able to prove to the company during its several rounds of negotiations that it has the ability to pay more than 5 1/4 per cent? This is what collective bargaining is all about – unions objectively proving to a company that it should have a larger share of the pie, not “shutting down” the company to increase the share”
Aggrieved – And Indispensable?
The letter-writer I just admired does not seem too sugar-worker friendly. Certainly no friend of GAWU!
I need to know much more about the current generation of Guyana’s vital sugar-workers. They still don’t work all year round, like the public servant, the doctor or the taxi-driver. And no public servant would relish a day in the canfields, from say, six in the morning to two in the afternoon. And yes I know enough of the cane cutters’ grievances and frequent battles with a sometimes distant management.
However, I have reason to suspect that the thousands of Guyanese sugar workers know confidently, of their indispensability to the industry and to the national economy. But both those workers and all Guyanese must be made to understand that all of us suffer if sugar fails at this time! Whatever the future determines, we need sugar for a few more vital years. Those workers know their status; the power of their cane-trash dirty clothes. They make plans on the fo’-day morning order-line. How many days to give GUYSUCO – how many for the luxury (private/peasant) farmer…
When to stay home to sell; to mind the cows or invest the remittances from abroad. Should we/they hold the economy hostage? I, we, must approach the unions – and the management – for exposition on these issues. Intransigence has to give way to commitment if not outright patriotism. The nation must pay more attention! From GUYSUCO’s Bedroom to Basdeo’s Bedroom, the sugar industry must be more scrutinized now.
Political…?
If the marauding murderers and robbers were politically motivated, the letter-writer should offer up to us just two basic elements of their “insurgent” operations against the elected authority: Who provided the political rationale and impetus? And secondly, which military minds and training afforded them their weaponry and skills?
Changed values and morals allowed the relatives and supporters of the slain bandits, to be defiantly supportive of those who claimed to have killed the old and the children. No wonder more will arise. No matter how well “the root cases of crime” are tackled. Wrong is now viewed as “right”.
Consider…
1) * coming next week: National Disagreements
2) * Is it true? The father of a fatal accident victim says that many young men join the police force, city police or Fire Service to get driving licences from crash courses. They are under-trained and frequently cause grief.
3) * Onto Mashramani 2009. How much of Carifesta Ten will be sustained for Mash?
4) * Citizens’ request to the new Georgetown City Council Complaints desk: give us two weeks’ notice that the whole council is retiring!
‘Til Next Week!
allanafenty@yahoo.com
