BWU slams delay in transfer of stakes to workers

The Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) is demanding urgent clarity on the future of the restructured sugar industry and the fate of long-promised benefits for the men and women on whose backs the industry has been built, Barbados TODAY has learned exclusively.

 

After years of assurances that former and current sugar workers, particularly those who toiled in the cane fields, would become part-owners in a new cooperative regime, the union says those commitments have yet to be honoured.

 

BWU Deputy General Secretary Dwaine Paul told Barbados TODAY that frustration among workers has reached a breaking point as they await answers from industry leaders before next year’s crop begins.

 

“After two years of uncertainty following the 2023 restructuring, workers are growing increasingly disillusioned because the commitments made to them have failed to materialise,” Paul said.

 

“We are awaiting a meeting with the chairman and senior leaders in the industry in terms of the way forward because the workers, in all honesty, have grown very frustrated because there were promises made as far back as BAMC [Barbados Agricultural Management Company] and while those promises did not materialise, we had to restart because of a complete separation of the workers from the industry.”

 

The restructuring of the sugar industry in 2023 led to the establishment of two private entities that took over production operations, Barbados Energy and Sugar Company (BESCO) and Agricultural Business Company Ltd. (ABC). The move, which also involved independent cane farmers, was hailed at the time as a “historic development” that would transform sugar workers into shareholders and co-owners of the revived industry.

 

But Paul revealed that since the creation of these companies, little progress has been made.

 

“Some of these workers have been part of this for a little while, coming into the BESCO arrangement and having the promises made to become shareholders, to become active persons within the ownership space as well as promises of upgraded facilities, better pay arrangements, better opportunities not only in the traditional industry but also moving into the energy section of the industry,” he said.

 

Workers were also told that an energy-producing farm would be established to support operations under a “sugar and energy” model, but that initiative had stalled.

 

Paul said: “Since the launch of the Farm Relationship Programme, we’ve met a number of hurdles which, basically, coming down to the worker level, have resulted in no major changes. We still have a factory that requires significant maintenance and significant upgrades. We still have an industry that needs recapitalisation, and we still don’t have an avenue to generate that income that the workers of the industry need.”

 

The original plan was not limited to current sugar workers but was meant to include former employees who had exited the industry, he noted.

 

“Being in this position, which seems to be a position of being stalled, doesn’t engender any confidence in the workers,” he said. “They’re frustrated, and the union is a bit frustrated.”

 

Added to the uncertainty are questions about the actual ownership structure of BESCO and ABC. Last month, Barbados Sustainable Energy Co-operative Society Limited (Co-op Energy) announced that the MOU between that entity and BAMC had been terminated in August. Co-op Energy President Lieutenant Colonel Trevor Browne said the government did not transfer ownership of BAMC’s assets to them, and the cooperative did not set up BESCO or ABC.

 

“As far as we understand, we don’t have the documentation,” Paul explained. “The companies were set up in terms of a structure of a holding company that had the two companies under it. There were supposed to be transferred ownership between the three players – the government, the workers, and the co-op movement.”

 

“If you take Colonel Browne’s comments, he’s saying nothing was transferred, then it would have to be the holding company still under the government. But as I said, that is something that was done between the purchaser and the [seller]. The union’s interest in this whole thing was simply to secure the shares and the share ownership that was supposed to be transferred to the workers.”

 

The BWU official stressed that the union would not accept a return to the days when sugar workers had no stake in the sector they built. “I cannot be part of a situation where the workers go back to not having an ownership stake in what they are producing and what they have produced,” Paul said. “We’ve already reached out to all the players, we’ve already had meetings at the domestic level with the management of BESCO, but obviously, as you would understand, these are discussions that are of a higher level.”

 

Paul said the union hopes to have the matter resolved before the next crop season begins.

 

“From a business standpoint, they would have to be resolved because, at the end of the day, the entity still has to function if it’s going to carry staff and if it’s going to support industry,” he said. “So we have to understand if the original plan is not going to go forward, then what is Plan B, or do we need to create a Plan C?”

 

He maintained that whatever path the industry takes, the workers must remain central to its future.

 

“The union’s position is that we want to see the workers remain at the level of moving to having ownership and better returns from whatever industry that we’re dealing with. Whether it’s cane, 100 per cent agriculture, [renewable energy], whatever we are doing, the workers have to be in the forefront and they deserve to be at that level,” Paul said.

 

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb