Working conditions at Demerara Sugar Terminal need to be improved

It was so good to learn of the very positive developments surrounding the Demerara Sugar Terminal (DST), as reported in SN, about the promise of desilting the surrounding river constraints to facilitate easier movement of shipping.

There are few contemporaries alive to recall the initial conceptualisation and creation of the Demerara Sugar Terminal, and would recollect the virtual garden created in which housed the expatriate staff at the time.

The project related to the highly imaginative engineering construction of the factory built at LBI Estate on a floating foundation sometime in the 1950s.

But the conditions at DST deteriorated over the long years, neglected by the various owners of the sugar industry. As a consequence it became a health hazard which impacted substantively on the physical and mental conditions of most of the employees, neglected as they were by the management of the day.

Fortunately there were some sensitive efforts to retrieve the environmental working conditions during the last administration; but it is uncertain as to whether there has been any comparable follow-up since.

The writer is in a position to speak with some authority on the initiatives made in his time to improve working conditions, which recollection suggests are further needed.

Hopefully, the union concerned will see to it that the current management will attend to the accompanying desilting of the discouraging working conditions which still affect its members.