Cane harvesters attached to the Blairmont sugar estate who were required to cut and load cane at the Rose Hall estate were on Tuesday blocked from entering that estate by harvesters there.
Guyana Times International understands that the Blairmont sugar workers protested outside the office of the administrative manager, Anil Seepersaud in a bid to recover wages for the day. The cane harvesters attached to the Rose Hall estate are contending that they will not allow the harvesters of Blairmont estate to “cut out brought-forward cane” (cane which was cut much earlier and is in danger of spoiling).
The Blairmont crop has ended and as a result, the workers were tasked with cutting and loading cane at Rose Hall and Albion estates as their crops are scheduled to come to an end on December 22.
Cane harvesters attached to the Bairmont sugar estate downed tools on Tuesday protesting non-payment for work done
A Blairmont sugar worker explained what transpired: “When we reach the destination, we saw the workers on the bridge and they raised cutlasses and said nobody ain’t crossing the bridge.”
This newspaper was told that some 400 Rose Hall workers prevented the Blairmont workers from entering the sugar estate. The sugar workers attached to the Blairmont estate commenced cutting and loading cane at New Forest last week, but those workers at the Rose Hall estate were not very pleased with that move by the management of the estates.
This publication understands that the workers of Blairmont estate have been cutting and loading cane into punts manually, while the workers of the Rose Hall estate have been cutting the cane but not loading it onto the punts. It, therefore, created a situation where the Blairmont estate workers were “doing more work than the Rose Hall” sugar workers.
After the Blairmont workers were prevented from fulfilling their duties, they contacted Agriculture Manager Seepersaud who instructed that they return to Blairmont where they were told they would be given “alternative work”.
The workers told GTI that they were required to weed the fields. However, the workers, approximately 180 in number, refused to weed as they did not have the required cutlasses for the job specified, and demanded that they be paid for the “delay and travelling time”, but the traumatised workers were told that they would not be paid.
GTI was told that an agreement between the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Association (GAWU) and the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) states clearly that workers should be paid for four hours when asked to do alternative work and provided with the necessary tools.
Attempts to solicit a comment from Agriculture Manager Anil Seepersaud were unsuccessful.
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