GuySuCo has blamed a dismal production year for its inability to offer sugar workers any increase this year, and yesterday it made a final proposal of two weeks pay, which the union said it “has accepted for now”.
The corporation announced that it is no position offer workers any increase, in addition to the Annual Production Incentive (API) because of a poor production year. Total production was 209,000 tonnes as of yesterday; the target for 2010 was initially set at 280,000 tonnes.
“This is bleak news for sugar workers who are punishing because of mismanagement at GuySuCo,” President of the Guyana Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU), Komal Chand said yesterday. He said workers have agreed to continue the struggle at an appropriate time.
GAWU had rejected previous offers from the corporation which were tied to production and had called a crippling seven days strike, but Chand said the proposal for two weeks’ pay at the end of this year was accepted.
He said workers would be paid when the crop ends in two weeks. However, workers at Enmore will receive their packages now because the crop has ended at that estate.
Chand told this newspaper that GuySuCo held firm to its previous position on wage increases during the meeting yesterday while citing poor production numbers.
He said the corporation is hoping to extend the crop into the Christmas week if the rain holds.
Chand said workers are not happy and reiterated that “the struggle will continue at an appropriate time”. He charged that workers are being made scapegoats for the poor performing Skeldon factory which “keeps draining GuySuCo of revenue rather than pumping revenue in the industry”.
He rejected the corporation’s release which it issued last week on the Skeldon factory saying that it continues to operate below full capacity. He accused the corporation of “hiding the facts” when it pointed to Skeldon’s performance this year in comparison to last year.
“How can you compare a state-of-the-art factory to an old factory? …Skeldon is not even performing at full capacity and the record would show that it is some 15,000 tonnes behind schedule for this year,” Chand said.
He argued that it was improper of the corporation to compare last year’s number with numbers this year given that the old factory, which was also grinding in 2009, “was not on the same level with Skeldon”.