Dear Editor,
I make reference to Mr Nowrang Persaud’s letter in your January 12 edition captioned ‘Wages data in GuySuCo report were not manipulated or misrepresented in any way’. Whilst I have no reason to believe it was Mr Persaud’s intention to manipulate or misrepresent those data, I have good reason to posit that the data that was submitted to the Commission of Inquiry on which Persaud sat as the Human Resource/Labour Relations representative was either manipulated or misrepresented. Mr Persaud said he was personally surprised when the earnings and attendance data were presented to him, and he would “never have guessed that the actual and potential earning power of sugar workers had been improved to such an extent”; but was he expecting that those earnings would have been the same as when he left the sugar company almost 16 years ago? Certainly not.
In my missive last week, which you published, I illustrated, using the data on the ‘high earners’, that during the in-crop (sugar production period) the average sugar worker in the 8 categories that the report refers to would earn an average of $56,400 per week or $11,300 per day in a 5-day work week. The average annual income for the 8 categories is $2,198,000. How many workers are in this category?
In Mr Persaud’s letter reference was made to attendance. It is a known fact that in all attendance reports in GuySuCo for the said 8 categories, only in-crop attendance is considered for reporting and analytical purposes. It’s revealed that 65% of 16,464 workers (the 8 categories are associated with agriculture operations only) work for 150 days per year. The data refer to 2014, which had an average of 31 grinding weeks. The maximum days available to these categories in accordance with the collective labour agreement is 5; as such for the year 155 days were available to them. It means therefore that 65% of the workforce presented themselves to work on 97% of the total days available to them in 2014. Further 80% of the workforce worked for more than 125 days per year, or 81% of the total days available to them. The in-crop period is 60% of the calendar year. This therefore defies GuySuCo’s claim over the years that the company has been plagued by a high rate of absenteeism and maybe a shortage of agricultural labour.
Editor, I will now look at the wages data, in particular the ‘mid-level earners’, which is relative to the wider workforce. The average annual income for the same 8 categories is $1,095,000. As I have pointed out in an earlier letter, the in-crop period, which is about 60% of the calendar year, commands 80% of the year’s income. Therefore the in-crop income works out to be $875,000. Using the data on attendance in 2014, 65% of the workforce earns an average $5,800 per day or 80% of the workforce earns $7,000 per day. The latter is borne out from the attendance data where a section of the workforce has lower attendance, but maintains a high daily average income. Do the mid-level earners really earn this level of wages? How many workers constitute the mid-level category with these earning capacities?
The letter also shows the earning capacity by range, where 65% of the workforce earns more than $4,000 per day. Why for the majority of the workforce (60%) a wide range of $4,000-$8,000 was used? Such a wide range does not allow for a proper analysis of the earning capacity of such a large workforce. Since it appears that there is a plethora of data, it would be more helpful if a narrower range were used, for instance what percentage of the workforce earns $4,000-$5,000, $5,000-$6,000, $6,000-$7,000, etc, to maximum of more than $10,000.
I seek not to cast aspersions on anyone, but am merely making an effort to have accurate information that could foster better informed decisions on the way forward for the sugar industry. Labour is the most critical of all factors of production in GuySuCo, and the last thing one would want is information that could lead to biased, ill-informed decisions.
Yours faithfully,
Rajendra Parmanand
