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GuySuCo caused strike to hide dismal production-GAWU

Nov 04, 2009 News

-sugar industry still shutdown

Industrial relations between the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and the country’s main sugar workers’ union have soured even further with the company now being accused of deliberately causing the strike to hide the dismal performance of the industry.
General Secretary of the Guyana Agriculture and General Workers’ Union (GAWU), Seepaul Narine, said that it has become increasingly clear that GuySuCo precipitated the action by the workers since they knew that the original production targets could not have been met.
The GAWU official also claimed that prior to the current strike which started late last week, the Skeldon factory, affected by a host of problems, abandoned some 2,400 tonnes.
“It is to be hoped that sugar workers are not made scapegoats for this wastage,” the statement warned.
GAWU has also refuted claims by Errol Hanoman, Chief Executive Officer of GuySuCo, who reportedly said during an NCN programme on Friday that the company would lose some 17,000 tonnes of burnt cane (1,550 tonnes sugar) from the strike.
“Is this assertion factual? As of today (Monday), there were close to 3,600 tonnes of burnt cane across the industry. This figure was garnered from usually reliable and impeccable sources. Should the canes remain unprocessed it will amount to approximately 305 tonnes of sugar.
According to GAWU, through the National Budget, GuySuCo had projected production of 290,000 tonnes of sugar; this was later revised to 250,000 then 242,000 tonnes.
“Before the workers’ protest over the withdrawal of the three per cent wage increase it was a known fact that there were enough canes to produce 235,000 tonnes of sugar according to the Corporation’s latest assessment, again according to reliable sources.”
Narine noted that the union on October 14 had issued a press statement questioning whether GuySuCo’s decision to pull out of wage/salary talks could have been because of ulterior motives.
“Blame the workers and the Union for the sugar production which will be less than the originally budgeted number. The corporation knew of the silent internal revision even before any industrial action, which they precipitated, was taken by the workers and the union.”
On Friday, sugar workers walked out after conciliation proceedings over wage talks were declared deadlocked by the Chief Labour Officer.
Minister of Labour, Manzoor Nadir, then ordered compulsory arbitration.
Since Friday, the country’s sugar industry has been on a shutdown and GuySuCo’s management has been engaged in several meetings to arrive at solutions.
But up to yesterday, both GAWU and GuySuCo were refusing to meet.
GuySuCo wants the workers to return to their duties claiming that arbitration proceedings are under way. GuySuCo’s Chairman, Dr Nanda Gopaul, would only say yesterday that the corporation was working to end the strike so that the arbitration process can move on.

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