Cane harvesters of the Enmore and Wales sugar estates, who were on strike over the past several days over a price dispute with the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), have agreed to return to work today following discussions between the union representing them and GuySuCo.
According to a release from GuySuCo, the strike at Enmore commenced on August 16 and continued yesterday while workers of the Wales Estate took industrial action yesterday. This occurred despite several interventions by estate management and senior officers of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU). The release went on to state that the management of GuySuCo noted that disputes involving ‘pricing of obstacles’ has a fixed procedure on the estates, which has to be followed before it reaches either management and the union. GuySuco, in the release, also noted that it is the desire of management of the entity to prevent disputes, but noted that they are invariably protracted because of the exorbitant and unreasonable demands made by workers.
When this newspaper visited the Enterprise/Non Pareil area yesterday, sugar workers who were on strike there related that the management of GuySuCo should take the hard work they complete each day on the estate into consideration. One sugar worker stated that the problem related to the reduction by the estate manager of an agreed price the cane harvesters were expected to be paid for cutting 100 punts of sugar cane, noting that the job requires he and his colleagues to do additional work such as clearing the cane fields of vines and grass before cane could be harvested.
The cane harvester said that approximately 300 workers took industrial action as a result of the dispute, noting that the sugar industry ‘is the way it is today because of bad management’. He said in the days gone by cane harvesters were paid as much as $16,000 per week while today, they are ‘barely’ obtaining a weekly sum of $10,000. He noted that this sum cannot compensate for the hard work each sugar worker has to complete while in the cane fields.
Assistant General Secretary of GAWU, Dereck Thakur, told Stabroek News yesterday that the industrial action taken by the Enmore and Wales workers was resolved with the management of GuySuCo agreeing to change ‘some of the duties’ the cane harvesters were required to complete.
This latest strike action by cane harvesters comes at a time when the management of GuySuCo can ill afford such events with a large number of cane harvesters turning to other forms of employment. The company registered a $4.1B loss last year, in what it termed a challenging year during which rainfall was the highest in 53 years.
