By Svetlana Marshall

THE eight workers who picketed Demerara Timbers Limited (DTL) on Monday have been dismissed over what the company describes as “unlawful” behaviour.Anita Croft, Cecilene Thomas, Nicholas Bobb, James Fraser, Derrick Toney, Kennard Freeman, Seaford McPherson and Vibert Richardson were all served with dismissal letters on Tuesday at the company’s Mabura Hill location.

The dismissal comes one day after the workers, with the support of officials from their union – Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), picketed DTL’s Head Office in Kingston, Georgetown, calling on the logging company to engage in good-faith negotiations with the union.

Bilateral negotiations between the union and the company reached a stalemate on November 17, 2015 after the company failed to approve any increase in wages and salaries. However, DTL had offered a Christmas Bonus of $5,000 to each worker after informing them that its financial state prevented it from offering an increase. Workers’ salaries were last increased in 2014.

On Wednesday, Cecilene Thomas, one of the sacked workers, told Guyana Chronicle that she reported to work on Tuesday, and after a hard day’s work was presented with the dismissal letter by Edwin Daly – one of the supervisors.

A section of the letter reads: “I have to and hereby inform you that as a result of the strike action taken by you unlawfully and without prior notice to the company on October 3, 2016, the company will no longer require your service.”

In response, Thomas, along with her colleagues, protested the company, this time calling on the Management of DTL to withdraw its decision.

“The company’s action is unjust. How could you dismiss us for picketing? You don’t have to give notice for a one-day picketing exercise. This is not fair at all,” Thomas said as she expressed her frustration.

She had been in the employ of DTL for the past 14 years, and as a result of the dismissal, she stands the risk of losing her severance package.

“With this dismissal, they will only pay us our salaries and maybe our travelling allowances but we will get no severance package and you have people here who would have worked with this company for 29 years. Some got 14 years, another got 10 and some got 15 years of service,” she lamented.

“One-day picketing is not a strike,” she added.

Anita Croft, another picketer, who was in the employ of the company since 1985, said DTL continues to disregard the rights of its workers.

‘EYE PASS’
“These people eyes pass we. First time they use to give us a vehicle for us to attend (union) meetings in Georgetown, now we got to catch them Mahdia buses. Other thing is, we weren’t picketing because we had no reason to, we were picketing because we haven’t had an increase since 2014 and that can’t be right,” Croft explained.

According to her, the logging company cannot be allowed to continue operating as though it is above the law.

Nicholas Bobb, who had worked with the company for the past 17 years, said the company must withdraw its decision, positing that the workers were not even issued with a warning before such a decision was taken.

“I have a family to maintain, I have bills to pay; you just don’t dismiss somebody who would have worked for you for 17 years just like that. Workers don’t have rights in this place man?” he lamented.

James Fraser, another employee who had been working with the company since 1995, said “they don’t want to increase our salaries; they said clearly they are not buying no bus, no ambulance, nothing, now they firing people if they picket. This is not good enough, this isn’t right, they depriving us of our rights.”

In a press statement, GAWU said “this is the first time in history that an entity, private or public, has taken a decision of such an incredulous nature.”

GAWU said the decision by the company must be viewed as “yet another anti-worker and anti-union act which is occurring rather frequently these days”.

It was pointed out that DTL’s action is a clear violation of Section 8 of the Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Act which prohibits the dismissal of workers for their participation in industrial action.

This right is further reinforced by the Constitution which provides the right for workers to engage in strike and protest action.

“The company’s high-handed, illegal and ominous act represents a decision which must be roundly condemned by all right-thinking Guyanese. It is a clear attempt to intimidate the workers and use extra-legal measures to deny workers their just claims for pay increase,” the union stated.

It is now calling on the Social Protection Ministry and by extension, the Government to ensure that the company observes the laws, conventions and norms of Guyana and that the dismissed workers be reinstated forthwith.