Lawyers write SILWFC on overdue wage increase

Dec 20, 2009 News

— staffers paid on Friday

Workers of the Sugar Industry Labour Welfare Fund Committee (SILWFC), who picketed the Ministry of Labour over a week ago for a salary increase, have received it.

The payments came after lawyers wrote to the Committee advising them to pay.

President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU), Komal Chand, who yesterday said that on Friday the workers received their retroactive payments effective January 1, 2009.

Employees were demanding salary increases up to nine per cent and increases on other incentives.

GAWU had said that increases were approved by the former board of SILWFC earlier this year, but new management had refused to recognize the decision, questioning whether the decision had been legal. SILWFC new Board had queried the legitimacy of the approved salary increase which was not signed by the outgoing board which life ended June 30. However, lawyers agreed that the approval for the increases were legal.

About 25 employees of the SILWFC converged on the Ministry two Mondays ago to urge for the payments.

On December 9, members of the SILWFC, union officials, Carvil Duncan and Kenneth Joseph, wrote Deolatchee Ramotar, the Committee’s Administrative Manager, summoning a meeting with for December 11 to discuss the delay of the payment.

GAWU’s lawyers, Ashton Chase Associates, on December 10, also wrote SILWFC’s management urging the body to pay as his clients, the workers, have “demonstrated commendable tolerance to the foregoing infraction, but there are limits to this. They are aware of their legal and other rights in this matter, and bearing in mind the coming holidays, they instructed us to communicate this to you in the hope that better judgment will prevail.”

According to the letter, SILWFC was given 10 days to comply or “failure and/or refusal so to do the consequences thereof will follow, for which they cannot be blamed for taking every effort to avoid.”

A letter from attorneys-at-law, Cameron and Shepherd, on December 15, to SILWFC had also agreed that there was a concluded agreement between the Committee and GAWU”. It appears that the two-year life of the Committee under Regulation 3 of the Sugar Industry (Rehabilitation and Price Stabilization) Regulations had expired on June 30, 2009 and but for this the formal agreement was not signed.”

Cameron and Shepherd noted in the letter to SILWFC that the non-signing of the agreement was a mere formality and can “in no way detract from the fact that there was a concluded agreement between the Committee and the union…Indeed the Committee would be estopped from denying the existence of such an agreement.”

SILWFC’s present Chairman, Dindyal Permaul, in a statement on the issue, while acknowledging the previous Board had deliberated on the matter and had discussions with representatives from GAWU and management, said that “a signed agreement, however, was not achieved.”

But the union said it has the evidence that there was an approval of the increase. And this is a letter from SILWFC’s Administrative Manager, Deolatchee Ramotar, who on May 25, last acknowledged the increases and said that members agreed to it during a meeting on May 21, 2009.

The letter also said that cycle allowance would be increased by $500 per week; while employees below the level of Senior Clerk shall receive a Christmas bonus of $28,000 and those above will be entitled to $35,000 each.

Meal allowances were to be increased from eight per cent, the letter said.

Minister of Labour Manzoor Nadir had deemed the strike action by GAWU as not only illegal, but unwarranted.

“The matter at hand was clearly not discussed between the Board/Management (SILWFC) and the GAWU. No strike or protest action was necessary. As Minister of Labour, I am concerned that unions are resorting to the strike mechanism even before they test the grievance procedure that exists in their CLAs (Collective Labour Agreements). I am calling on all parties to respect the agreements that they have; respect both in the letter and the spirit.”

Some 25-odd workers, led by the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU), stood outside of the Water Street office of Minister Nadir, waving placards and demanding that they get their increase before Christmas.

Permaul, in his statement, had noted that the new SILWFC Board was working to finalize a package for workers.

“Industrial action, which have not followed established practices, regarding initiation, can have unintended consequences for the timely achievement of consensus,” the Chairman said.

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Lawyers write SILWFC on overdue wage increase

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