Sugar workers back to work

Oct 16, 2009 News

…GuySuCo/GAWU to resume ‘talks’

After a total shutdown of the sugar industry for two days, workers countrywide are expected to resume work today. The Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc (GuySuCo) and the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) have agreed to resume wages and salaries negotiations on Monday.
Chief Executive Officer of GuySuCo, Errol Hanoman, told Kaieteur News yesterday that as long as the sugar company is satisfied with the workers resumption to work, then the company will happily return to the bargaining table.
This was later confirmed by President of GAWU, Komal Chand, who also told this newspaper that there will be full resumption to work by all the workers, as long as GuySuCo makes good on its promise to return to the wages and salaries negotiation.
Meanwhile, GuySuCo is still in the process of assessing the amount of losses the company suffered as a result of the strike action.
Hanoman explained that a lot of canes were burnt and left in the fields, while there were those that were left in the punts. He did admit however, that some amount of sugar would be lost, but added that it would not be a large amount, since the strike only lasted for two days.
Sugar workers countrywide resorted to strike action on Wednesday after GuySuCo decided to withdraw from the wages and salaries negotiation with GAWU.
GuySuCo had stated that it decided to withdraw from the negotiation, since a section of the LBI workers commenced strike action to voice their disapproval at the Corporation’s wage offer for this year among other issues.
However, GAWU later explained that the workers decided to down their tools in order to press their demand to obtain an acceptable target for sugar production for their Estate (LBI), to secure weekly production incentive (WPI) for week ending October 17, 2009.
As a result of this, workers from all the other estates decided to also down their tools as well in solidarity with their colleagues.
Additionally, Chand had said that the decision by GuySuCo to withdraw from the negotiations was influenced by interior motives.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, at his weekly post Cabinet media briefing yesterday told the media that aggressive action would have to be taken to resolve the GuySuCo/GAWU issue, even if it has to be made at the political level.
He said that the confrontation between the two parties needs to have an acceptable resolution to it.
“I don’t believe that the industry which has been confronting challenges in the whole of 2009 could continue to be confronted with challenges of this sort…challenges of this magnitude…the entire industry shuts down and therefore, apart from urging the two sides to bring there differences to resolution, I also would agree that extraordinary level even at the political level need to be taken to ensure that this is done in a timely way,” Dr. Luncheon said.

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Sugar workers back to work

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