By Jeune Bailey Van Keric 

AS THE Rose Hall Sugar Estate strike enters its sixth day, cane harvesters returned to the streets armed with placards calling for the removal of Estate Manager Eudi Persaud, who once managed the now defunct Wales Estate.Shouting: “Eudi Persaud must go!”, “EM [estate manager] must go!”, “Estate Management creating problems!”, “We will defend our rights!”, and “Massa days done”, scores of workers journeyed on foot and by bicycles, while some were transported by a 30-seater bus, to the forefront of the Rose Hall Estate factory at East Canje, East Berbice on Monday morning. There they vowed to continue their militancy until dialogue is held between management and workers.

Workers’ representative Mark Ferreira told reporters it seems as though the estate is under the radar for closure, and he urged the powers that be not to use the workers as a scapegoat.

“We are aware that GuySuCo is in a crisis; but we, the men on the ground, did not put GuySuCo in the state it is in. If they want to implement new rules, then there are ways and means. And if GuySuCo wants to reduce cost, then let there be a pay cut for the higher hierarchy. Then they will earn for themselves moral authority,” Ferreira said.

He added: “This matter could have been settled the same day the strike was initiated, but it would seem as though this manager is getting directive from someone on the upper echelon of the industry who is setting us up to close the estate.”

Another workers’ representative, Errol Munroe, said that last Wednesday, after being informed by the Estate Manager that there will no longer be obstacle payments unless all the shared beds — 12 rods each — are cleared, workers downed tools and demanded that their various representatives meet with the estate management. However, the estate manager reportedly refused to meet with them.

NO ONE CARES

“We have families. No one cares. We have a new CEO, who never came to Rose Hall Estate. We have an Agriculture Manager whom we have never seen. But as the saying goes, the tree is cut from the bottom. The cane harvesters are the bedrock of the industry and our incomes are the first to be affected. Nothing happens to the manager’s salary. He has several allowances for his blinds (curtains), bus to transport his children to school, and a range of other benefits; but the cane harvester, who is the foundation of the sugar industry, is always disregarded,” Monroe said.

Adding his voice, Dwayne Kesney, another workers’ representative, said he was told that three and a half to five beds fill one punt. However, to achieve the obstacle payment, which represents whatever bush is cleared off the bed, all plots must be cleared.

According to him, such payment was never given under such arrangements.

However, he explained that in cutting the bushes, time loss would result; but if the industry pays the time-loss money, the workers would also have to receive a sum for time in motion, and as a result, there will no payment for punt weigh.

Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) representative Harvey Tombran said that, from inception, efforts were made to initiate a dialogue between the estate manager, field supervisors and workers’ representatives, but the request was denied. Mr. Eudi Persaud, he said, was not willing to meet with anyone.

Efforts to solicit a comment from Persaud proved futile.

The strike started last Wednesday after management implemented what cane harvesters say is a new rule which states: “If harvesters do not cut out the amount of shared designated beds, there will be no payment.”

Some 979 workers, representing four cane harvesting gangs, who were upset with management’s decision, downed tools, leaving behind approximately 660 punts of cane in the fields.
It resulted in a major loss for the already struggling industry.

GuySuCo, in a press release, has said that if, for any reason, the obstacles impede the harvester from executing his task in a normal manner, he and the supervisory staff concerned would agree to a price based on the quantum of obstacles present.

It should be stressed that extra (obstacles) payments are earned outside of the regular task shared.

The Rose Hall Estate management is holding firmly to an agreed principle that only on completion of the task, or achievement of 2.6 tonnes of cane, would the ‘extras’ agreed be entered for payment.