PNCR accuses GuySuCo of devious plot against Diamond employees

Mar 13, 2010 News

…GuySuCo says criticisms unjustified

“Workers employed by the Diamond Estate, appear to have been set up for massive defrauding of their benefits and entitlements as GuySuCo struggles to rescue the ailing sugar industry.”
This was a charge made by Dr Faith Harding of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR)
during the party’s weekly press briefing. She also took a swipe at the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU).
According to Dr Harding, whilst the sugar company pursues “this devious plan,” the workers union appears to be collaborating with either the Company or Government, as there are no visible signs that they are actively representing the interests of the Diamond sugar workers.
Dr Harding told media operatives that reports coming to the attention of the PNCR suggest that approximately 450 workers, most of whom have more than 20 years of service with Diamond Estate, could be affected by the devious plan of the Company.
Harding said that the Company has repeatedly told the public that it has no plans for closing the Estates “while silently scaling down the operations of all the Demerara Estates.”
The PNCR Executive member said that at Diamond, in particular, no maintenance work is being done on the estate cultivation while the Company vigorously attempts to sell the land to Government and other developers for housing purposes.
“The recent passage of $4B through the Ministry of Housing to GuySuCo for housing lands has been well publicised…In the meantime, no maintenance work is being done on the cultivation fields and workers from that estate are transported on a daily basis to work on the fields at LBI Estate.”
She reported that some workers are transported from Diamond to La Bonne Intention Estate to work two days a week while others in the crop husbandry category report to work at Diamond daily but are also transported daily to LBI.
“The fact is that many of these workers have contracts of employment with Diamond Estate and rather than pay severance or provide early retirement benefits to these workers, the Company plans to unilaterally transfer them to LBI…
“At this time, the workers report to Diamond Estate at the usual work time for transport to LBI but the PNCR understands that the real plan of GuySuCo is to force the Diamond workers to report to LBI at the same time at a later date without any compensation for the breach of their contracts of employment or the additional time it will take workers to report to their new place of employment.”
Dr Harding said that the threat to the workers is serious and “it is mind-boggling why the usually aggressive GAWU is so silent on these issues…Is there a conspiracy afoot?
“The Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc. is extremely disturbed at statements made by the People’s National Congress/Reform during its Press Conference today (yesterday), regarding the Diamond Cultivation on the East Bank of Demerara.
“We are even more concerned by the PNCR’s use of expressions, such as “defrauding” and “devious” in describing our efforts to turn the fortunes of the Sugar Industry around,” GuySuCo responded later.
The Corporation has a well thought out plan to return GuySuCo to financial viability, it stated.
“The Corporation has stated before and maintains that it has absolutely no plans to make any worker redundant.
“In fact, all terms and conditions of employment of all the workers remain intact and they are compensated for any additional time spent traveling.”
GuySuCo said that there is a shortage of labour on the East Demerara Estates where the two factories have been working well below their respective capacities.
The plan of the Corporation is to consolidate our workforce to improve production in our two factories and thereby improve the economic fortunes of the two Estates, it added.

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PNCR accuses GuySuCo of devious plot against Diamond employees

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