After a freeze on wage increases since 2015, the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU) yesterday announced that the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) had approved “pay increases” for sugar workers and that it was studying the development before making a decision on acceptance.
“At a meeting between the GAWU and the GuySuCo today (February 07)… the sugar corporation informed that it approved certain pay increases to the sugar workers,” a press release from GAWU stated.
But while the union had been pressing for retroactive increases to 2019, sources told Stabroek News that the pay increase offered is from January of this year and is not equal to the percentage increase given to public servants last year. “It is from January of this year and not from last year,” a source close to the process said.
Another source confirmed this and explained that “GuySuCo paid no regard to key discussions that the increase be from 2019 and what has been approved is not on the same scale as that what public servants got last year.”
With just three weeks to go before the general elections, the decision to finally pay an increase will prompt questions as to the rationale. Up to December last year, GuySuCo’s Chief Industrial Relations Manager Deodat Sukhu had said that the financials of the company showed that it could not afford to pay an increase.
Sukhu, who headed the GuySuCo negotiation team, related that the cash-strapped corporation did not have the revenue or cash flow to pay workers the requested increase. He had said that this position was made known to union representatives during meetings in October and November. GAWU had denied that Sukhu had advised them of this.
Sukhu stated last December that the unions had been negotiating for a 15% increase, which would amount to $1.4 billion annually. He, however, noted that the company’s financials did not allow even for a 1% increase, which would amount to $80 million per year as it could not afford it. GuySuCo did not issue a statement yesterday on the increases or the reasons behind the decision. With the general elections likely to be a close contest, the governing coalition has been pulling out all the stops and President David Granger recently promised land for laid off sugar workers even though hundreds of them had been on the breadline since 2017 without an alternative livelihood.
This newspaper reached out to both GuySuCo and GAWU but neither of the two would comment on the matter.
Chairman of GuySuCo John Dow asked that this newspaper’s questions be emailed to the corporation’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Harold Davis Jr, for which he provided an email address.
The union’s release said that it would not disclose the details. The release said, “While our union, at this time, will refrain from disclosing the details as the GAWU and the workers are actively considering the company’s offer, at the same time, it demonstrates that it is only through struggle that the workers and the oppressed will be able to surmount their obstacles and score, even meagre gains from the Administration.”
On Tuesday, workers and their union representatives picketed the Ministry of the Presidency over wages and salaries which they said formed part of an exercise which was taking place across the sugar industry, outside the Administrative Offices of the various estates. The union said the protests were public laments from the workers over GuySuCo’s “harsh stance of constricting workers’ wages and salary to 2014 levels”.
Referring to this exercise, the union yesterday said that they were “staunch in their demand for a deserving pay increase as they maintained that they were discriminated against.”
Further, the release added, “Apart from that, the workers further demonstrated how the pay freeze had pushed them and their families closer to the poverty line as they were crushed by the heavy cost-of-living. They had to find innovative means to make life’s ends meet as their nominal and real wages declined and their ever scarce dollars were not going as far as they previously could. It, indeed, was and is a difficult time and one where many sacrifices had to be made though they continued to give of their best but those who professed, at one time, to be their allies abandoned them.”
Their protests seemed to have found an ear with the corporation as the union said they were subsequently invited to yesterday’s meeting, even as they questioned if it was a political move. “It did not escape our attention that the offer comes less than a month away from when the workers and their families are expected to exercise their franchise and when there are active attempts to woo their support after years of assault after assault perpetuated against them. While this does appear suspect, it nevertheless demonstrates too the principled-ness of the workers actions to be treated fairly and equitably and to live lives where they can afford the basic necessities of existence.”
