Leonardo Blair, Staff ReporterTHERE IS a bitter battle raging in the world sugar market and many of Jamaica's 40,000 sugar workers who are likely casualties say they know very little about how it will change their lives.
Don't ask them, 'did you know?' "Nobody ever tell we anything so we won't hurt our heads over no fancy deals," says John Hale, a sugar worker at Monymusk in Clarendon for almost 20 years. It's like standing on the edge of a cliff in the dark. "But what good will knowing do now?" asked a group of sugar cane workers who sat down with The Sunday Gleaner to discuss the impact of the proposed European Union price cuts on their lives.
CALL FOR REFORMS
In July, the European Union (EU) Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler called for reforms to its longstanding sugar regime. This was just months before it was announced that a challenge at the World Trade Organisation by Brazil and other developing nations had been successful.
Under Mr. Fischler's proposed reform, African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, including Jamaica, are expected to lose significantly through price cuts to sugar they had agreed to supply to the EU under the Lome Convention.
Fischler is proposing that ACP countries be allowed to retain their preferential access quotas but would be forced to accept a 37 per cent reduction in the guaranteed price for sugar supplied under the agreement.
The proposed reduction in EU sugar support is to be implemented in three stages starting in July 2005. But it is now being appealed by the ACP countries, which argue that the time frame to implement the proposed changes is too short and would be devastating to their economies if executed so quickly.
But while sugar executives have been busy trying to appeal the proposals, local sugar workers remain passively upset that they have not yet been told anything.
Mr. Hale cares nothing for the complexities involved with the new EU proposals. All he knows is that he has spent a lifetime in and out of fields since 1986 cutting and weeding from sunrise to sunset. The only thing his bosses have ever told him when times got hard on the farm was: 'We nuh have nuh money.'
"Nobody no tell we anything," said Arthur Bryan who has been in the business for some 40 years. "You hear some things on the news but there is nobody to tell us what is going on."
CAN'T SURVIVE WITHOUT THE INDUSTRY
Wilfred Kerr, who has worked in the fields for 30 years, says sugar is his life. "I can't survive without the sugar industry. I wouldn't know what to do," said the pensioner. "Right now the sugar industry is in worries. The work is there but you not seeing what you working for. All them tell you sometimes is that they don't have any money."
One administrative worker at the factory explained that there is nothing sweet about the sugar industry right now. At one point, says the worker, "sugar used to be bread and butter, but now it's only bread." The worker knows that trouble is brewing as there have even been rumours of another redundancy exercise.
Vincent Morrison, island supervisor of the National Workers Union (NWU) which represents the majority of the island's sugar workers, explained to The Sunday Gleaner that meetings have not been held with the workers yet because they are trying to avoid panic. He pointed out, however, that as the current lobby continues, they will be meeting with the workers early next year to discuss the issue and its impact.
"The delegates are very much aware of what is happening and we will certainly be meeting with the field workers and factory workers in Mandeville early next year," he said.
Under the reformed sugar regime, the EU has proposed to reduce the price paid to ACP states for sugar sold on the European market. The European Commission has stated that from 2005 to 2006, ACP sugar producers will be paid 506 euros (J$41,900) per tonne, down 20 per cent from this year's 632 euros (J$52,300) per tonne.
For 2006/2007, there will be no adjustment, while for 2007/2008 there will be a further 16 per cent reduction, which would see the price paid for sugar move from 506 euros per tonne to 421 euros (J$34,700).
