The GAWU has recognised the announcement by Vice President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo that the some seven thousand (7,000) sugar workers who were made jobless following the closure of Wales Estate in 2016 and Enmore, Rose Hall and Skeldon Estates in 2017 will benefit from a grant of $250,000. Indeed, given the hardships that has beset the thousands of workers since they were heartlessly thrown on the breadline, the support by the Government is a welcomed and seeks to correct the injustice and indignation the workers and their families confronted following the callous minimization of the sugar industry.
Indeed, the Government must have taken account of the socio-economic tribulations that the workers encountered following estate closure. As the ILO study on the impact of estate closure outlined, the pangs of hardship and despair confronted a great lot of our Guyanese brothers and sisters. That study confirmed that the workers and their families lives and well-being were significantly setback and indeed some may never be able to make up the ground that they lost. As GAWU said then and reiterates again, the decision to shutter estates has no sincere economic or social rationale. We contend that it was an undisguised attempt to punish sugar workers and the sugar industry.
The GAWU must point out too that while heartened about the support to the severed workers, we cannot ignore the plight of those sugar workers who were retained but punished severely by the former Administration. It is now documented history of the decline in standard-of-living that sugar workers faced at the hands of the Coalition. Successive years of no pay increase, the arbitrary withdrawal of benefits and a seeming policy to punish the industry extracted a significant toll on the workers. We believe they too are equally as deserving, and we urge the Government to consider extending its support to all sugar workers. We believe it will help to alleviate the many burdens the workers had to contend with during the term of the Coalition in office.
We recognised from media reports that the Vice President also spoke to other plans for the shuttered estates. Separately, the GAWU will seek to engage the Government on its thoughts to develop a better understanding and be able to advise workers who would seek guidance.
