5% pay hike for sugar workers

Aug 19, 2011 News

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GuySuCo on course to break-even this year – GAWU

Sugar workers are to get another 5% pay hike, with the state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) expected to break-even this year, the first time after recording consecutive years of losses.
While the cash-strapped entity’s books for the first five months of this year indicate that creditors and bankers are owed over $6B, the Corporation is expecting that revenue arising from molasses and sugar production would allow it to just cover its 2011 expenses.
In early July, the sugar production target was revised downwards to 282,712 from 298,879 tonnes set at the beginning of the year.
These disclosures were made yesterday by the workers’ largest negotiating body, the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), via a press release on the bilateral negotiations which concluded “successfully” on Tuesday – the first time this has happened in six years.
According to GAWU, talks with GuySuCo ended on Tuesday after 11 sessions, starting June 20. This resulted “in sugar workers being awarded with effect from January 01, 2011, a five per cent (5%) pay-rise,” GAWU said. The union explained that in July, workers across the industry were “belatedly” paid another 5% rise retroactive to January 01.

“The Corporation had been demanding that this year’s (2011) sugar target must be achieved as a pre-condition for the five per cent (5%) increase in the rate-of-pay to be effected from January 01, 2011.”
GAWU pointed out that it was President Bharrat Jagdeo who intervened late last year when the cash-strapped Corporation contended that no increase in wages was possible.
The union reminded that its President, Komal Chand, sharing the platform with the Head of State, among others, at the Rally for Enmore Martyrs on June 16, 2011, in pressing for the implementation of the higher rate of pay, had lamented the fact that workers were still awaiting the payment of a 5% rise in pay for sugar workers, to be effective from January 01, 2011.
At that time, GAWU said in the release yesterday, Chand said that workers in the public and private sectors had received new rates of pay this year based on their increase in pay last year, but sugar workers were still to get theirs. Noting that it was “most discriminatory” to treat the nation’s sugar workers so disrespectfully, Chand had warned that sugar workers would not be willing to see a delay beyond June 30, 2011.
“This year is the first time in six years that the corporation and the union reached an accord at bilateral negotiations. There was the intervention by arbitrators, conciliators from the Ministry of Labour and the Executive President during those past years. It is also the first time since collective bargaining was restored between the Union and the Corporation in 1989 when wage-settlement was reached months before the end of the year.”
GAWU disclosed that its 45-strong negotiation team, including elected delegates, unanimously approved the 5% pay hike, notwithstanding its original claim of 12%.
“Members of the negotiating team paid cognizance to the audited statement of the Corporation for 2010 and the management accounts as at May 31, 2011 which indicates that the cash-strapped Corporation for the first five months of this year is indebted to creditors and bankers to the tune of over $6B.”
GAWU explained that in the course of the negotiation, it insisted that the Corporation furnishes all relevant information to allow its negotiators to be fully acquainted with the facts.
“The Union was wary that an acceptance of the Corporation’s 5% offer should not be accepted automatically without the completion of the process, notwithstanding its sister union, the National Association of Clerical Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE) by agreement dated July 08, 2011, approved the 5% wage/salary increase.”
GAWU also warned GuySuCo’s Board of Directors and its management team to “be tireless” in ensuring that the Skeldon’s new factory operates optimally so that it could reach the estate’s targeted yearly production of 110,000 tonnes by the end of 2012 – the newly-set date of the Corporation.
“Special attention must also be paid to ensure that the current field expansion work is progressing within the approved time-frame and that the field layout, adequate roads, irrigation canals, drainage trenches, etc, are properly constructed.”
It is expected that the GAWU and GuySuCo will formally sign the increase into effect as early as today.
The sugar industry recorded one of its worst years in two decades in 2010, with just 220,000 tonnes, after industrial action, poor weather and low turnout.
GuySuCo has been battling a crippling price cut by the European Union which amounted to a hefty $10B annually in revenue for Guyana.

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