Sugar Workers must now stand in solidarity with Public Servants - Ramjattan

Sugar Workers must now stand in solidarity with Public Servants – Ramjattan

Dec 15, 2013 News

Sugar workers proceeded on strike for one day and the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) agreed to pay its Annual Performance Incentive (API). The public servants have been protesting for weeks now but the government maintains that it will only pay the five per cent increase.
This practice is discriminatory and will create a divide between the various work forces, said Leader of the Alliance for Change (AFC) Khemraj Ramjattan, who said while the party is happy to see sugar workers getting their money the same must also go for Public Servants who are asking for a fair increase in salary.
Ramjattan said that the unfairness must not be tolerated and that sugar workers must now stand in solidarity with their fellow public servants.
According to Paul Bhim, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), sugar workers are to be paid five days’ pay. The amounts will be paid in two tranches, one on January 3, and the other on March 14, 2014.
The agreement with the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) is expected to be signed on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, sugar workers downed tools over the traditional year-end production bonus which GuySuCo said it is unable to pay. All eight estates were closed but the workers returned to work on Thursday.
Meanwhile Public Servants will tomorrow receive their December wages and their five per cent retroactive pay increase for the year too.
Ever since the announcement of the five per cent increase it has attracted a string of protests countrywide and public servants demand a bigger payout.
Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) which has rejected the proposed five per cent increase, has said that “Enough is Enough.”
According to a recent public pronouncement by the GTUC, Public Servants have been the recipients of torrential vilification and demonisation over the years, and it is they who turn the State’s wheels of production.
“Without them this nation grinds to a halt. Continuing to carry this great responsibility, undertaking yeoman service, giving of their sweat day in and day out, sometimes working under difficult and unhealthy conditions, it is unacceptable to treat them with contempt.”
The Guyana Public Service Union, on the other hand had dubbed the “illegal” five percent imposition of salaries and wages for Public Sector Workers as insensitive, disrespectful and ruthless.
The union charged that, “Certainly the ‘Fat Cats’, who are paid significantly more, would enjoy five percent of their millions to satisfy their Christmas fantasies, without having to touch or deplete savings towards that end. The rest of the labour force, whose percent realizes the bare minimum, finds this payout as a meager aid towards defraying some of the outstanding debt that had piled on their shoulders over more than a year of neglect by an uncaring employer. Christmas then is but a name to many, but truly enjoyed by a few.”

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Sugar Workers must now stand in solidarity with Public Servants – Ramjattan

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