Ex-sugar workers from the Wales Estate say that they feel discriminated against as they are yet to receive severance payments, 13 months after the estate’s closure and are calling on government to look into their “plight that is making life hard.”
“If you got yuh old man giving you brother everything and not giving you anything, how you would feel?” one ex-sugar worker from Wales Estate said, while stating that they have been struggling to live over the last 13 months, since they are yet to receive their severance pay.
Despite the Wales Estate closing its doors more than a year ago, cane cutters, some who have spent more than half of their lives toiling for the sugar industry, told Stabroek News they are still waiting to be paid. Approximately 375 Wales workers have been demanding severance payments but the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) has offered them jobs at the Uitvlugt estate instead. This matter has also engaged the attention of the court. The former workers have said that the denial of severance is a breach of the Termination of the Employment and Severance Pay Act.
