The challenges Guyana’s sugar workers face

Dear Editor,

I make reference to the article captioned “One Berbice factory produces more than two Demerara estates….GAWU was aware of LBI closure since 2011” that was carried in another section of the media on April 16. The article, in its entirety, described the positions of GAWU and GuySuCo on the closure of all remaining operations at LBI and integrating them with similar operations at Enmore Estate.

The Union’s position is that “when the factory was closed in 2011 and the workers were transferred to Enmore, both Unions (GAWU and NAACIE) were assured by a member of the current interim management that there will be no closure of any other department after the closure of the factory”.

The company, on the other hand, is contending that the “integration process was not completed, since there are still two mill docks, two field workshops, two field laboratories, two field offices and two stores within the East Demerara Estates (EDE) operations at LBI”, and “that the full integration process should have been completed since 2011, but was not done, to the further detriment of the economics of EDE”.

The foregoing illustrates an obvious gridlock between the two parties, which could easily be diffused by a process underscored with trust. The common denominator is the member of the interim management. The interim management comprises just two persons, Errol Hanoman and Paul Bhim; the latter was at GuySuCo’s helm as the acting CEO in 2011.Hanoman was not in the company’s employ at the time.

Bhim needs to clarify whether he gave an assurance to the two unions that “there will be no closure of any other department after the closure of the factory”, and further if there was no such assurance, what stymied the “integration process to the detriment of the economics of EDE”, bearing in mind that under his stewardship as the CEO, GuySuCo incurred a huge debt of G$58 billion. The completion of the integration process then would have most likely salvaged the “economics of the EDE”, and reduced somewhat the company’s overall debt.

Reference is also made to the statement, “This state of affairs must be compared with Albion Estate which produces more than twice the amount of sugar as produced by the East Demerara Estates and operates efficiently with one mill dock, one field workshop and one field laboratory”.

Before venturing further, it must be observed that in the entire article GuySuCo keeps referring to East Demerara ESTATES, which means that the company at this point in time is recognising that the entity is not a single operating unit. One then presumes that when the “integration process” is completed, it will be East Demerara estate, but why should it be East Demerara Estate, and not Enmore Estate, when LBI will no longer exist? LBI cultivation will be consolidated, integrated (all words used interchangeably by the company) with Enmore.

Editor, Albion Estate has approximately 9100 ha under cane, whilst EDE has 7200, 1900 ha less than Albion. Albion could process 168 tonnes of cane per hour, whilst EDE is 105. Under these two production capacity factors, it’s misleading to compare Albion with EDE on sugar production capabilities.

What should have been stated by the company is that whilst Albion is a larger operating unit, it has one of each of those contentious operating sub-departments.

Reference is also made to article captioned “125 workers of 846 likely to be fired – operations to close by May month-end” that was carried in your April 19 edition. In this article, the sugar company stated that there were 846 workers attached to LBI, and 125 were at risk of losing their jobs through redundancy. This public disclosure by the company has certainly prejudiced and compromised the ongoing discussion with the unions. The company has disclosed its plans to the public before engaging the unions.

The company further disclosed that the East Demerara Estates’ cost of production increased from US$0.26-US$0.30 per pound prior to the closure of the LBI factory to US$0.41 per pound after the closure, peaking at US$0.54 in 2013. By the company’s own admission, the average cost of production increased from US$0.28 before the factory’s closure to US$0.48 after closure, an increase of US$0.20 or US$400 per tonne of sugar.

What sort of evaluation was done by the company to close the factory in 2011? Are the 125 persons who will most likely be made redundant responsible for the US$0.20 increase in the cost of production? It’s highly dubious. Seven hundred and twenty-one workers, from the company’s statement, are engaged in productive work, so they cannot be part of that US$0.20.

Further, the company is advancing that it is incumbent on the “current management to expedite the completion of the integration of the Enmore and LBI Estates to try and prevent sugar production in East Demerara from going out of existence in the near future”.

First, it’s clearly a subtle threat that there is a thought to close the East Demerara Estates. However, that existence is contingent on the “completion of the integration of the Enmore and LBI Estates”.

Editor, I trust the unions will insist on a Memorandum of Understanding that once it agrees to the completion of the integration process that the future existence of the East Demerara Estate and all its employees and operations will be assured. This would remove any future disagreement like the one now where the unions are maintaining that a member of the interim management had assured them in 2011 that there will be no further closure after the factory’s closure.

Editor, this nation, on whose taxes this company survives, cannot continue to witness day in day out unending disputes and deep-seated polarisation between the sugar unions and GuySuCo. This issue of “completing an integration process” is obviously beset by lack of trust. There needs to be trust, openness and honouring of words and deeds, so that the virtues of good office and better judgement could prevail. The show of one-upmanship must be over.

Like Wales, where the lives of 1700 workers are on tenterhooks due to a drought of information on their future, the workers at LBI will be equally apprehensive of going to Enmore as they look at the uncertain fate of their West Demerara colleagues.

Yours faithfully,

Chandimal Rambudhan

Hope West

Enmore