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I urge sugar workers not to be misled by politicians

May 27, 2012 Letters

 

 

Dear Editor,
With strong ties to the sugar industry and although retired, I can’t help but observe how the Alliance for Change (AFC) is intruding into the industrial disputes for the purpose of telling the nation the sugar workers want new representation from them.
To me that is what is behind the latest setting up of two Wales Estate workers, Malcolm Hercules and Bertam Cummings. I understand the AFC courted many of the strikers but only Hercules and Cummings were persuaded to put down GAWU. I am now wondering whether GAWU couldn’t outline its representation of these same workers to show how much they have benefitted over the last years and recently from higher rates-of-pay out of a Job Evaluation exercise. It is easy to be ungrateful when you are upset with Guysuco, whose bad management denies you your rightful holiday-pay packets.
GAWU has to be a responsible bargaining agent, working within the limitations of collective agreements. The union also has to ensure that workers’ jobs are always protected and to avoid the closure/privatization of the industry. This will enhance the union’s credibility even in the face of the AFC-type usurpers seeking to exploit worker grievances. In any case, does the AFC believe that some exodus from Guysuco will result in some new (political) Union winning promised and imagined benefits from the cash-strapped Corporation than GAWU has been attaining? Think again AFC.
It is Guysuco’s responsibility to deduct both NIS contributions and Union dues. Registered Union members worldwide and in Guyana pay dues to their unions so that the bargaining agents may administer and manage and represent, while being able to be independent.
I am sure that GAWU will balance its responsibility with insisting that Guysuco finds the workers holiday-pay due to them. I warn and I urge sugar workers not to be misled by politicians when industrial matters are best left to the recognised union. Is it not easy to understand what the AFC really wants?
Clifford Joseph

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