Dear Editor,
In the veins of almost every Guyanese runs the bitter-sweet legacy of sugar. The Wales Sugar Estate closed its doors two Sundays ago. The coverage by the media of this issue, including the expressed views of those workers, requires us to stop and take heed.
None can deny that within recent years the sugar industry has not been economically feasible and has been dependent on the Consolidated Fund to maintain its activities. However, as a people what ought to be of major concern to us is the absence of treating each other with dignity and respect, born out of the principle of respecting the equality of all.
Our ancestors, whether enslaved, indentured or colonised, fought valiantly against the brutish system of plantation society where the owners and managers treated them as sub-human and beasts of burden.
The struggle for respect and dignity runs deep, and we who are the beneficiaries of those who fought for our freedom should keep trying at all costs not to repeat what they fought against. How we as a people arrived where we are today requires us to take time to reflect on where it went wrong and what ought to be done to correct it.
The Wales sugar workers are Guyanese and irrespective of their association ‒ political or trade union ‒ their entreaties to the management of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and Government of Guyana should have been treated with the respect they deserve. Those workers should have had their voices heard, through their unions, including hearing if they had any proposal to make the operation viable.
The Chairman of the GuySuCo Board is Professor Clive Thomas, a man I consider a friend and colleague in the trade union movement. Thomas is renowned by trade unions throughout the world as a leading labour economist. To his credit, he has not spared his criticism of the way the business of the industry was handled by the Forbes Burnham, Desmond Hoyte, Cheddi Jagan, and even Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar administrations. The issue here is the treatment of the human resources element where under Dr Thomas’s leadership both GuySuCo and the government have continued some of the said practices he is on record as condemning.
For the trade union community there is need to do introspection, and examine what role some of us played in contributing to workers/citizens being treated with contempt today. It is obvious that the decision-makers in closing the factory felt that they could do so without feeling that civility and the constitution expect a certain standard of behaviour. What is evident is that they chose to capitalise on the cleavages in the society to ram through their decisions.
Some leaders of trade unions have allowed partisan politics to trump universally accepted principles. This has contributed to the achievements of the trade union movement being trampled on. If persons stayed silent for the sake of political expediency when others’ rights were being transgressed and the laws violated, then when the table turns a similar silence will be seen. If efforts are not made to rid this mindset from our midst the sacrifices of our forebears and those whose shoulders on which we stand will be as naught.
The issue of sugar is a matter of national import while decisions in relation to it could have dire consequences, all of which require the studied responses which come through diverse engagements. For instance, 600 workers are now placed on the breadline. This will adversely alter their standard of living and that of their families, more especially given that Guyana does not pay unemployment benefits.
The National Insurance Scheme (NIS), which is financially cash-strapped, immediately loses contributions that would have been paid by those workers, among whom there are at least a quarter, who in the next six to seven years would be eligible for a pension. This is a serious contribution loss to the scheme.
Let me make it very clear, I am not opposed to measures being put in place to make GuySuCo profitable. What I am opposed to is the process being applied in the treatment of workers and their representatives, which are reminiscent of the days when people had no constitutionally protected rights. The growth and development of this country requires that we treat with each other, if not as brothers and sisters, at least as human beings with the inalienable right to be treated as equals with dignity and respect.
Yours faithfully,
Lincoln Lewis
