Labour Minister Manzoor Nadir said yesterday that he had finalized the membership of the three-person arbitration tribunal. According to him both the Corporation and the union were asked to nominate a member to sit on the panel while he appointed the Chairman.
The corporation’s representative is Budget Director within the Ministry of Finance, Sonya Roopnauth. Representing the union on the panel is Yog Mahadeo, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Guyana Telephone and Telegraph company (GT&T). Dr Gobind Ganga, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Guyana, has been selected as the Chairman of the panel. Dr Ganga was a member of the Arbitration Panel which intervened in the GuySuCo-GAWU wage dispute last year. The Deputy Chief Labour Officer Clive Nurse has been appointed as Secretary to the tribunal.
The tribunal has been set up with two terms of reference. First “to enquire into the difference between the Guyana Sugar Corporation and the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union as it relates to wages and salaries to be paid to those categories of employees of the Corporation that are represented by the Union for the year 2009 and to make an award as the tribunal deems fit.”
“The Tribunal shall commence its work on Monday, November 9 2009 and shall give its final decision and report within five weeks”, was the second of the terms of reference.
Nadir also called on the striking sugar workers “to return to work in full numbers” today and urged the Corporation “to ensure an amicable environment exists so as to allow the Tribunal to conduct its work without duress.”
However, General Secre-tary of GAWU Seepaul Narine, when contacted last evening, said that he had not received any correspondence from the Minister. He said that he could not say whether the strike will be called off today. Earlier this week, the workers had met and discussed the possibility of them returning to work tomorrow.
Following the deadlock in conciliation proceedings between the union and GuySuCo last week Thursday, Nadir imposed compulsory arbitration in the wage dispute. This came after the Sugar Corporation withdrew its initial offer to GAWU of a 3 percent increase in wages and salaries for the year, saying that it was prepared to go to arbitration. GuySuCo says that this was done in order to facilitate the arbitration pro-cess. However, this angered the workers who decided to engage in industrial action.
The Minister, in letters to both entities, said: “Conscious of the threat by the union to go on full scale industrial action which can have serious consequences for the industry, the Hon. Minister wishes to advise that he is satisfied that the continuance of the difference is likely to be gravely injurious to the national interest and has decided to impose compulsory arbitration by virtue of the powers conferred upon him by Section 4 (1) (c) of the Labour Act, Cap. 98:01.”
However, GAWU has since objected to the Minister ordering compulsory arbitration and called it premature. The union said that while it was in favour of arbitration, it wanted to enter this process voluntarily.
Yesterday workers at the Wales Estate and other estates staged picketing exercises during which they voiced their concerns over the arbitration process while calling for increases in wages and salaries.
