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A liveable wage may not be the only answer
Dear Editor
Guysuco has been saying that it has no money to pay a wage increase to its workers. This was proven by the Government having to pay over 700 million dollars to the workers.
From one day to the next, the price of commodities changes. It will be difficult to decide how much money is needed by a household to survive.
People in the sugar belt have become totally dependent on the estates for their survival. This dependency makes them vulnerable. The Government needs to look at ways to stop this dependency.
As a boy growing up in Port Mourant in the fifties, the people were not totally dependent on the sugar estates for their income. They had alternatives. They were growing rice, rearing livestock, planting cash crops or fishing.
These avenues helped them to feed their families as well as educate their children.
The workers in the sugar belt do not have these privileges now. The reason being that the lands in their villages are, either being used for sugar cultivation or house lots.
Guysuco can better the lives of its workers. In each village, it can allocate land for people to plant cash crop or rear animals.
This kind of gesture will augment the Government plan in growing more food.
In closing, I want to say that monetary rewards may not be the only way to resolve labour conflicts.
Sherlock Rawana, PhD
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