Sugar workers get walking papers but no word on future jobs

Scores of severed sugar workers were left anxiously awaiting word on when they would be rehired as part of the privatisation of the former state-owned Barbados Agricultural Management Company Co. Ltd (BAMC) which folded on Monday.

BAMC has been replaced by two new firms, the Agricultural Business Company Ltd. (ABC) and Barbados Energy and Sugar Company Inc. (BESC), both owned by the Barbados Sustainable Energy Co-operative Society Limited (Co-op Energy).

As the BAMC parted ways with its employees, it is expected that a rehiring process would ensue in the coming days under the two companies.

When a Barbados TODAY team visited the Portvale sugar factory on Monday, several workers were standing around the office waiting to collect their walking papers – a process that got underway just after 9 a.m. and was being conducted in alphabetical order.

Some workers said they were still in the dark about the rehiring. There were about 140 weekly and monthly paid workers at Portvale, the island’s sole remaining sugar mill which is now run by BESC. Some workers have as much as 30 years’ experience at the Blowers, St James plant while others have been there for less than a year.

One worker said: “Everybody received their [severance] papers at the factory before 2 p.m. today. The only thing that was given today was notice pay, vacation money and any other outstanding monies. We are to collect our severance from the National Insurance and Social Security Service between January and February. After collecting our papers, we went there to register and that is what we were told.

“We left today without any indication as to when the rehiring process would take place so it’s pretty much a wait-and-see situation. When the new companies take over from tomorrow, we are presuming that they will make their calls or do so after Christmas.”

Field workers who worked at various plantations across the island received their severance papers as well, Barbados TODAY has learned.

When contacted, Minister of Agriculture Indar Weir said he would reserve his comments on the privatisation process until a news conference is held. He did not state when the conference would take place but indicated that it would come after the takeover had been completed.

Last Friday, the field workers’ unions, the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) and the Sugar Industries Staff Association (SISA) which represents most of the mill and supervisory staff, declared they were in the dark about the rehiring process and were concerned that the preparations for the 2024 sugarcane harvest could be hampered.

Dwaine Paul, the BWU’s deputy general secretary, said sugar’s transition to an energy industry was being jeopardised by poor communication, a lack of transparency and an atmosphere of uncertainty.

He said: “This would create unnecessary problems for the industry and put workers in a position where they are ill-advised because of the withholding of information and thereby would have to make decisions based on whatever information they have. We are not going to sit down and tell workers what we do not know. So our concern is that we are failing the workers in what was supposed to be a move to save the industry for the same workers.

“It is supposed to be that workers are only ending the relationship with the BAMC because we are transitioning the business. You are going to create a situation where workers start to believe that something is amidst. So the workers just feel that they are being severed and that is it. The transition is not clear. The focus of these conversations was transition not redundancy; however, the conversations seem to be hammered or entered heavily on the issue of redundancy.”

Dwight Miller, SISA’s president, added that his membership was also concerned that they would be left without employment.

“Apart from the redundancies, [the workers] want to know about the rehiring process because, in the long term, people would want a job,” he said. “We don’t know if this process would take a month, two weeks or so. So people want to be settled in their mind as to the time period. Also, you have to consider the pressure from the back end as you would need to have a 2024 sugar harvest, which starts around the end of February. So in workers’ minds, timings are very tight.”

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb