Following the bulldozing of prime agricultural lands over the weekend, agricultural workers faced another blow yesterday when 22 workers from the National Agricultural Marketing Development Company (Namdevco) were sent on leave.Fearful of being unfairly terminated, the angry workers at Namdevco's Packing House, Piarco, went to the agency's headquarters in Debe, where they staged protests.Accompanied by their representatives from the National Union of Government and Federated Workers (NUGFW), the workers called on Food Production Minister Vasant Bharath to intervene immediately so they could return to their jobs.Shop steward Azard Khan said Namdevco had violated their collective agreement.He claimed the union was never informed of the action beforehand."We believe the rights of workers have been taken away. The union regulations stipulate that a worker should apply for leave before he goes on leave."This did not happen. Instead the company told workers they have to proceed on ten days leave," Khan said.
When the new Namdevco Board came into office, Khan claimed, many contracts were lost."Right now we have no operations in the packing house because of this. We have lost so much of contracts with various supermarket chains and Subway."We do soup packs, callaloo packs, coconut packs, but because we lost the contracts, there is no more work at the Packing House," he said.NUGFW negotiator Reynard Holder said many of the workers had more than 16 years of service with Namdevco.He said in 2009, the agency fired nine workers. The matter is currently before the Industrial Court.
The company's chief executive officer, Harry Bisram, met with the protesting workers yesterday and assured that all workers would return to duty tomorrow, when a further meeting would be held with the NUGFW.Bisram explained that many of the local contracts had to be terminated because the cost of production was higher than the profit made, making it unfeasible.He said a review would be done within the next two weeks, following which some of the local contracts may be retained.