Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder accused the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) of playing politics by striking prior to the findings of the Commis-sion of Inquiry being made public, while stating that the reports reveal sugar workers to be the highest paid in the country.
“They still want to have negotiations on wages before the results of the Commission of Inquiry have been made public. That is political,” Holder told Stabroek News. This publication asked the minister how he could justify this response considering that collective bargaining usually occurs between the two parties prior to the second crop and has been the case since 1989. The minister responded, “GuySuCo has broken all records over the last few weeks and they are going to meet that target shortly. I think what the union wants to do is to make GuySuCo not meet that target.”
Holder held firm that the strike action was condoned by the opposition PPP of which President of