Sugar workers along with officials of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) yesterday picketed the Ministry of the Presidency over wages and salaries.
A statement from GAWU said that the picketing is part of an exercise which is taking place across the sugar industry outside the Administrative Offices of the various Estates decrying the Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc’s (GuySuCo) “harsh stance of constricting workers’ wages and salary to 2014 levels”.
The workers and the Union are calling on President David Granger to end what it said was the “blatant and glaring discrimination” perpetuated against the sugar workers for two consecutive years. The union said that resort to have the Union’s wage/salary claim for 2016 addressed at the conciliatory level within a timeframe was thwarted by GuySuCo.
“The insistence by GuySuCo that the examination in the National Assembly of the 2017 National Budget proposals precluded discussions of the Union’s wage/salary claim of 8 per cent. Also, the ‘excuses’ by the Corporation’s Chief Industrial Relations Manager regarding a busy schedule rendered the conclusion of the conciliatory proceedings just a few days before the December 23, 2016 closure of the current crop. At the bilateral and conciliatory levels, no pay increases were approved by GuySuCo obviously and understandably a stance in sync with the ruling of the APNU+AFC Government and the GuySuCo’s (interim management) team”, the union lamented
GAWU says it has warned GuySuCo’s representatives at the various meetings that their “consistent bad” treatment of workers of recent will stoke dissatisfaction among the thousands of sugar workers throughout the industry.
“Our Union repeatedly pointed out too that while the industry will seek to produce maximum sugar production vis-à-vis the resources it employs, diversification into electricity production, white sugar, alcohol and distilling, all recommended by the Sugar Commission of Inquiry established by the APNU+AFC Government last year offer good prospects for a viable future. Simultaneously, we reminded GuySuCo that cattle rearing, rice cultivation, aquaculture, and orchard fruits have had miserable results in the past”, the union said.
GAWU said that it is rather despondent that President Granger has not even acknowledged the Union’s correspondence sent to him on December 15, 2016 requesting that the Government’s bonus of $25,000 be paid to sugar workers.
“Sugar workers are acquiring bitter lessons and accumulating sad experiences in these last nineteen months they are able to see how much they were deceived when many in high offices made grand promises to them. Now, they must fight to protect and preserve even minimal benefits they earlier enjoyed. We are sure that the experiences and the unwarranted pressures they face now-a-days will lift their class awareness and help them in their continuing struggles against injustices and for their all-round betterment”, the union added.
