Blairmont strike costs Guysuco US$ millions | | Print | |
Written by Denis Scott Chabrol |
Tuesday, 28 August 2012 18:52 |
The Guyana Sugar Corporation (Guysuco) on Tuesday lamented the dragging out of a now four-day old strike, saying the company has lost US$13 million because canes have been left lying idle. Guysuco said the strike has resulted in 400 punts of cane lying idle for the past three days, rapidly deteriorating. “As a consequence not only has sugar being lost, but harvesters have been not required for work for last Saturday, today and tomorrow because of the unavailability of empty punts. The company said that in addition, there are 85 punts of cane harvested and left in the fields. At this stage the deterioration in the cane quality has resulted in sugar loss of 100 tonnes that could have yielded $13M in revenue. The Corporation’s Director of Human Resources, Jairam Pitam confirmed that “all operations except essential services” at Blairmont have been ceased. Operations, he told Demerara Waves Online News (www.demwaves.com), would resume only after all of the workers have resumed duty. He said the Corporation was contemplating measures to be taken against the errant workers but certainly they would not be fired. “The Corporation cannot condone such reckless behaviour on the part of the workers; as such it will meet with the Union to discuss the gravity of the disruption caused by employees abandoning their jobs and the application of the appropriate sanctions,” Guysuco said in a statement. President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), Komal Chand said the factory workers did not return to work promptly because the shop stewards had experienced difficulty in promptly contacting the workers who should have reported for two shifts. “When we talked to our shop stewards, they said they had difficulty contacting all of them by late last night and they felt that they wouldn’t see a resumption until tomorrow (Wednesday) morning,” Chand told Demerara Waves Online News (www.demwaves.com). He explained that the corporation took a long time to correct and pay new rates to a number of workers following a job evaluation. Chand said the workers were angered by the fact that they have to wait until Friday to be paid at the new rates. However, union executives eventually convinced them to return to work since the payment is less than one week away. The corporation said talks between GAWU and senior managers late Monday afternoon at Blairmont yielded an agreement “for immediate cessation of the strike, and for a full resumption on the 10/6 pm shift and onwards.” “Unfortunately, the 10/6 pm shift yesterday, 6/2 am shift and entire workforce in the field workshop today (Tuesday) continued the strike, despite an agreement being reached Monday,” Guysuco added. The current strike by factory and field workshop workers began last Friday when the 2/10 pm shift downed tools at about 4.30 pm, when the factory was in full operation. The corporation said that despite assurances that all payments would be made by Friday the workers continued the stroke. Operations were normal on all shifts on Saturday and Sunday until Monday when the entire workforce in the field workshop struck on the same demands made on Friday. “This strike is in blatant violation of the grievance procedure that provides, among others, for dialogues at various levels until a dispute or grievance is resolved, rather than for workers proceeding to abandon their jobs; thereby causing 485 punts of cane to perish and denial of work to 850 harvesters for 2 days already,” according to Guysuco. Guysuco has been recording consistently declining production, resulting in the sugar producer and the union often blaming each other for the state of the cash-strapped and highly indebted industry. |