… makes last ditch proposal before downing tools

By Michael Younge

The 50-member General Council of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) on Saturday decided to put its planned countrywide strike on hold so that a final claim could be made to the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) for discussions on the Annual Production Incentives for workers which is due to be paid at year-end.

GAWU President Komal Chand

The Annual Production Incentive (API) is enjoyed by all staff when the industry achieves and exceeds the production targets set for a given period. GuySuCo has consistently reported that it has been achieving its weekly and monthly production targets since the new Government came into power and the overall targets were revised, given some of the constraints faced by the industry. When contacted on Saturday, GAWU President Komal Chand confirmed that a decision was taken at the three and a half hour meeting to put any pending strike action on hold and to seek all other alternatives to get GuySuCo to return to the wages and salaries negotiation table. He said that a majority of the representatives at the General Council Meeting felt that the Union needed to engage GuySuCo on the API issue to see whether its posture would differ from the one exhibited in relation to increases for workers before the year end. “So we have decided to formally submit a proposal to GuySuCo’s management on Monday for consideration and we hope that they will get back to us by the next week”, he said. Asked what were some of the other underlying factors that influenced the decision to the put the strike on hold, Chand said that no formal decision was ever arrived at to strike in the first place but when analysis of the time was done, it revealed that worker turn out would have still been poor, given that it was a holiday in the new week. He explained too that GuySuCo, in anticipating the strike action, failed on Saturday to prepare the fields and estates for harvest as workers turned up and there was little or no work for them to do at the estates. “In a sense, they struck against themselves… we are reminded of the CEO’s utterances that for every day of strike they lose 2000 pounds of sugar so they have self-inflicted a strike today (Saturday) as none occurred from our end”, he explained. Chand stated that the union has also explored the need to get GuySuCo to return to the table and believes that over the next week, more attempts would be made to achieve success in this respect. “We know that the Union is avoiding these wage discussions”, he said, before being asked whether the next step will be to speak directly to Government, to which he responded in the negative as discussions were not formally closed with GuySuCo. Questioned whether his Union is coming under political pressure from the Government, given the utterances of Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and the casual posture of Agriculture Minister Noel Holder, Chand responded in the negative. “But I can tell that GuySuCo’s position appears to have a political undertone and seems to be getting support from the Government,” he remarked. He is convinced that any attempt by GuySuCo to reject the offer to discuss the API and other pending issues will see higher levels of solidarity among workers and stronger calls for more assertive action to ensure that sugar workers are paid what they deserve.