‘Irrelevant’ US$3M loss will be factored into 2009 wage negotiations

Jan 04, 2009 News

…GuySuCo’s spurious statements confusing union – NAACIE

The US$3M in lost revenue, which has been described as irrelevant by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), will definitely be factored into the upcoming 2009 wage negotiations between the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE) and GuySuCo.

This is according to General Secretary of NAACIE, Kenneth Joseph, who said that GuySuCo has a lot more clarifications to proffer, given that its spurious statements were confusing the union.

He said that the company will have to justify how a loss of US$3M is irrelevant when only recently the company was complaining of being cash-strapped.

Last November, GuySuCo was ordered to pay $1.3B to its workers, as the arbitration tribunal set up to deal with the wages dispute between the company and the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union ruled that a six percent across-the-board payment will have to be paid to employees by the end of this year.

The tribunal also ruled that a further 2.1 percent one-off payment must be made to workers as a cost-of-living adjustment for 2008. However, given GuySuCo’s financial constraints, the company was given until March this year to pay the living adjustment to workers.

Human Resource Director Geiram Petam, in the wake of the ruling, told Kaieteur News that, while the company would have to abide by the ruling of the tribunal, there will be serious complications, among them acquiring the money to pay the sum.

This ruling, he said, has added significant expense to GuySuCo, considering the fact that the company has a cash deficit.

During the submissions to the panel, GuySuCo argued that, given its current financial situation, it does not have the required financial resources to fund the Union’s demand for 14.25% increases in wages and salaries.

The corporation stated that it is experiencing tremendous losses in revenue as a consequence of lower output and the price cut being imposed by the European Union, its main customer.

It also argued that the funding for the Skeldon Estate Modernisation Project and delay in the commissioning of the factory are adversely affecting its financial position.

The tribunal was led by Deputy Governor of the Bank of Guyana, Dr. Gobind Ganga.
Other members of the team were attorney-at-law Cecil Seepersaud and Major General (ret’d) Norman McLean. Soured wage negotiations between the company and GAWU resulted in workers taking industrial action which lasted for almost four weeks.

GuySuCo has said that the US$3 million lost in revenue at the Skeldon Modernisation Factory during a test-milling operation was never budgeted for, nor was the money planned for by the sugar company; and as a consequence, such loss is irrelevant.

GuySuCo was at the time responding to an article carried in Sunday’s edition of Kaieteur News.