Government cannot be blamed for the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) workers not receiving wage increases, Alliance For Changce (AFC) Treasurer Dominic Gaskin said yesterday.
“GuySuCo is governed by a board of directors and if that Board of Directors decided that they can give a raise in pay that is entirely within their remit to do so. I don’t think you can blame the government if the Board of Directors does not see it fit to give their workers a raise…,” Gaskin said.
The Board of Directors of the state-owned sugar company is appointed by the government.
Gaskin was at the time responding to a question from Stabroek News at an AFC press conference yesterday.
He was asked whether sugar workers should receive an increase in wages and salaries given the fact that the cost of living has been climbing and his party had promised to look into the interests of the workers on the 2015 elections campaign trail.
Workers from the industry have been calling for an increase in wages and salaries and recently took industrial action. They have highlighted that their last pay increase was approximately four years ago.
Gaskin, a former Minister of Business, said that he feels that all workers deserve an increase in wages and salaries.
“I don’t know what discussion the union and the directors and management are in regarding workers’ wages. That matter has to be settled among them. I think we can all do with a raise in pay but I do not know what sugar workers earn. I really don’t know and you are asking me to give an opinion on something I don’t have knowledge on,” Gaskin added.
Meanwhile, asked at a PNCR press conference yesterday whether sugar workers deserved a raise of pay, that party’s Chairwoman Volda Lawrence said that as an accountant, she will not make such a statement to a private company. “The representatives of the workers and management, I am quite certain, will work together to ensure that whatever is deserving and whatever is affordable will be given to workers,” she added.
Earlier this month, the majority of the workers attached to the Blairmont Estate in Berbice went on strike to call for an increase in their salaries. The workers said they have not received any raise of pay since 2014 as they protested in front of the Blairmont Estate. Prior to that, they said that they had gotten yearly increases.
Harvey Tombran, the Regional Representative for the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union, had said that on August 30th, the union submitted a proposal for a 15 per cent increase in wages and salaries.
However, the meeting ended after the workers’ representatives pinned small placards on their shirts calling for an end to the “wage freeze.”
Calling the actions disruptive – which the workers denied – GuySuCo said that the meeting ended after the unions failed to remove the placards they wore on their shirts during the meeting.
