GuySuCo produced a total 233,733 tonnes of sugar last year, the Corporation revealed during the first conciliatory meeting with GAWU over the payment of the Annual Production Incentive (API) to sugar workers on Tuesday.
This figure falls way short of the target set in the 2009 Budget of 290,000 tonnes. The budget figure was later revised to 250,000 tonnes, then to 242,000 tonnes.
President of GAWU Komal Chand said that the union has since asked the company to provide details of the actual production level on each estate. Additionally, the union asked the Corporation to submit its financial accounts up to the 31st December, 2009. The Corporation has agreed to provide this information at the next conciliatory meeting. The date for this meeting is yet to be set, Stabroek News was told.
According to Chand, Tuesday’s meeting between the two entities was facilitated by the Ministry of Labour, upon the request of the Sugar Corporation. He said during the meeting GuySuCo outlined its position on the matter. During bi-lateral negotiations, GuySuCo had offered a pay incentive of four work days, which the union rejected.
GAWU is pressing for a nine-day pay incentive for 228,000 tonnes of sugar. Stabroek News was told previously that if the target for last year was at least 7,500 tonnes over or beneath the 228,000, a day’s pay could be added or subtracted. The union has argued that their current demand is in keeping with what was paid out in previous years.
In a release issued mid-December, GuySuCo said that it was going to pay the Annual Production Incentive in late January, in keeping with tradition. Recently, relations between the sugar workers and corporation have been strained, with frequent strikes by the workers as they protested for increased wages.
In October, after wage negotiations between the union and the corporation reached a deadlock, Labour Minister Manzoor Nadir intervened and ordered compulsory arbitration. The three-member panel later ruled in December that workers be granted a retroactive three-percent wage hike, which was payable before March 2010. This ruling of the tribunal displeased the workers, who voiced their displeasure over the ruling and related issues during protests.
They also insisted that the wage increase be paid before Christmas. The sugar corporation was able to put stop-gap measures in place and pay the workers their retroactive wage increase before Christmas.