More questions than answers
on each slide, she was forced to race through each slide, leaving the audience merely listening to her. Her thesis provides for “upskilling” of laid-off workers as a catalyst for developing their means of livelihood. Do the management of GuySuCo endorse this academic thesis as the blueprint for the alleviation of the suffering of the displaced sugar workers?
I am sure Ms Thomas’s presentation has left most attendees in the room convinced that GuySuCo has no logical, meaningful and sincere plan to deal with the massive lay-offs in Region Six. A handful of people trained in masonry, dress-making, catering, carpentry and plumbing will in no way deal with the magnitude of the present situation. 120 hours of training cannot convert a longstanding cane harvester into a competent mechanic who could be gainfully employed as a mechanic. It’s foolhardy for anyone to think this way, and as one member of the audience commented “it’s a massive problem that needs massive thinking”.
Editor, what was also disturbing during Ms Thomas’s presentation was when she stated the sugar company recognizes the sugar workers’ recent payout not as a severance allowance, but as capital waiting to be invested. Immediately, there were exclamations in the room that it is the severance that the workers and their families are feeding themselves on. I would want GuySuCo to show in whatever way the sugar workers with their remaining severance allowance could invest in any form of economic endeavour that will guarantee them a sustainable livelihood.
It is paradoxical for the management of this company to pontificate advising sugar workers to invest their meagre severance allowance for a sustainable income when they, with over $32 billion in government subsidies in the last three years, could only show a perpetual decline in the affairs of the company that they are entrusted to manage.
In closing, it is commendable for the trustees in Moray House to have organized such a well-attended symposium, and for the moderator Mr Joe Singh for a job well done. Unfortunately, at the end it leaves more questions than answers.
Yours faithfully, (Name and address provided)