Workers from the Albion and Blairmont estates in Berbice yesterday held protests calling on GuySuCo to resume negotiations on wages.
According to the union, GAWU, the sugar corporation had promised to provide a response to it by the ending of March but has failed to do so.
A statement from the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) yesterday said that “the workers are peeved that the sugar corporation has remained mum on the matter. They believe that the company is not treating the issue with the seriousness required. Workers have urged the Corporation to return to the negotiating table with a view to have the matters settled. They shared that they are not unmindful of the Corporation’s situation, but they said it appeared that the GuySuCo was neglectful of their plight.”
According to the statement, the workers have said that they are prepared to listen to “any reasonable proposal from the sugar company but noted that all they have been hearing is a deafening silence.”
Furthermore, the statement contended that GuySuCo had committed to providing a response to the Union by the end of March. “They said that though half of April has gone by the GuySuCo has yet to make its position known. They were at a loss for the company’s position though they expressed hope that the Corporation could reconsider its position and resume discussions at earliest.”
The Union said that the workers believe that it is possible for GAWU and GuySuCo to reach an agreement “though they noted it depended on the attitude of the Corpora-tion.”
On Saturday last at an engagement in Maida Village, Corentyne, Minis-ter of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha when questioned sought to make it clear that it was not government who had promised workers an increase. He pointed out that there had been discussions between the workers and GuySuCo.
“If they say that is government, the government hasn’t promised any increase but we will ensure that we work with the corporation to see what we can do for the sugar workers but we have to also be careful, look at the ability to pay, we will have to look at GuySuCo’s position right now.”
He noted that “GuySuCo said that they will look at their request, and you know as a government we don’t interfere with management and union negotiations.”
Mustapha then added that workers also need to take into consideration that over the last eight months “a lot of money (has been) injected into the sugar industry”, as he stressed that the government re-mains committed to reopen the closed sugar estates.
He stressed, “We are working aggressively to do that.”
The Minister also contended that based on the injection of funds into GuySuCo they have already started to see results from some of the estates.
“Albion and Blairmont estates would have already made three additional days’ pay, that came about because the factories are now being enhanced in terms of critical capital works and also the cultivation area we are looking to make proper infrastructure…. But wages and salaries are discussions between the corporation and union”, he asserted.
GAWU yesterday in its statement said that the minister’s intent to work with GuySuCo to see what could be done “offered a glimmer of hope though they noted that the Minis-ter has pointed out that the discussions are within the realm of the Union and the Corporation.”
Also, according to GAWU, the minister’s comments differed from what they would have heard from GuySuCo previously, “It has raised their (workers’) suspicions about what the sugar company had told them previously and they believed this was not a healthy development.”
Meanwhile, the statement added, that GAWU is also concerned about comments made by a GuySuCo source in an article published on April 17, in the Stabroek News, where the source informed that the 2019 5% increase when calculated will require some $1.5B annually. GAWU said, “This disclosure is wildly inaccurate and is seemingly the figment of someone’s imagination. While we seek not to negotiate in the media, from data GuySuCo shared with the Union we can say that the quoted figure has been multiplied several times over. Maybe it is that the GuySuCo source was glaringly misinformed or worse yet engaged in willful misinformation. We trust it is the former rather than the latter.”
