The sugar workers are as deserving of a pay increase as any other worker in Guyana

Tuesday , October 27 2015, Citizen’s Report, Source

I fully support the sugar workers in their demand for a pay increase. Since 1992, sugar workers have had a pay increase every year, even if it was not always to their expectation. But under the PPP, Ministers of Agriculture were mandated to ensure that GUYSUCO found ways to provide salary and wage increases to workers. For this, I am proud of my own role in extending salary and wage increases in 2012, 2013 and 2014. I take pride and there is no need for apologies to be on the workers side.   Personally, as Minister of Agriculture, I stood resolutely on the side of the workers. Former CEOs, Dr. Rajendra Singh and Mr. Paul Bhim would testify to my resoluteness on this matter. I insisted then, as I insist now, that we must separate the difficulties that Sugar was and is facing from the right of the workers to a pay increase. For me and I know for the PPP Government, the question was never whether there would be a pay increase. All negotiation between GUYSUCO and GAWU was on the basis that the PPP Government supported a pay hike. The negotiation was always based on the size of the increase.

The sugar workers are as deserving of a wage increase as any other worker in our country. They certainly are more deserving of a pay increase than the cabinet members. The Minister of Agriculture, who I must assume reflects the position of APNU+AFC, has already dismissed the demand of the workers by stating that this is a political strike.

Sugar workers have always been militant and when it comes to their wages they have always stood firm, no matter which party is in Government. The sugar workers have never been intimidated by anyone or by any government. On a weekly basis as Minister I met workers who were on strike for one issue or another. I respected their militancy in defending their rights.

People like Nagamootoo and Ramjattan and their cohorts like Dr Veersammy Ramaya in Region 6 would fan the flame and demand that the PPP Government respect the rights of the workers. Suddenly these defenders of the rights of sugar workers deem the firmness of workers as political. It is unforgiveable and shameless and workers will not forget this travesty.

I can assure the Minister and his colleagues that if it were the PPP in government under these circumstances, the sugar workers would definitely still take strike action. I caution the Minister and APNU+AFC, this strike is motivated by workers demanding their right and has nothing to do with any support for any political party. My personal support to the workers has nothing to do with politics, but everything to do with the fact that I stand as resolute now as then that the sugar workers are fully deserving of a wage and salary increase now.

Using the COI into GUYSUCO as an excuse not to start wage negotiation is a wicked discriminatory ploy. The Minister has stated that there was a Commission of Inquiry (COI) and that it makes sense that GUYSUCO not deal with any wage negotiation until the COI’s report was completed. But we have learnt two things about the report – first that it was completed and given to the Ministry and I would assume the Cabinet and second that the COI did not deal with wages and salaries since it was not part of their Terms of Reference.

If we were to take the first explanation to justify a delay in wage negotiation – awaiting the completion of the COI’s report – the Minister is now engaged in changing the rules. The COI report has been completed. He now claims that the report has to be studied before any arrangement can be made to deal with wage negotiation. But the year is almost over and we have no idea when the COI Report will be examined and how long it will take.

But there is also a COI for the Public Service. No one suggested that the public servants wait until the COI for the Public Service was completed to discuss any possible wage and salary increase in the public service. The public servants received a pay hike, even though it was paltry and the argument was that only a paltry increase was possible because of a bankrupt treasury.

My question is why the difference in managing wage and salary increases between sugar workers and the public service. I object to the measly pay increases given to public servants. The public servants deserved the 20% increase that APNU+AFC promised them. But the treatment of sugar workers is shameless and a clear case of discrimination, all because the sugar workers are seen as PPP supporters.

The second part of the explanation is that the COI will make no recommendations relating to wages and salaries since these were not included in its Terms of Reference. If indeed, wages and salaries were not a part of the Commission of Inquiry, it would be an insult to sugar workers.

How do we establish an expensive COI that is likely to cost more than $75M by the end and not include any examination of wages and salaries and how these impact on the sugar industry? But accepting on face value that the COI has nothing to do with wages and salaries, then why should the workers have to wait on the COI to start negotiation for wages?

Further, APNU+AFC itself told the nation that there would be a Salary and Wage Task Force to decide on wages and salaries increase, including for the Cabinet. But they could not wait for any task force, they increased by unprecedented amounts their own salaries. What makes this cabinet more deserving than the sugar workers? I challenge then to go to the sugar estates and tell the workers that Granger, Nagamootoo, Ramjattan and the rest are far more deserving than the sugar workers and their families.

Nagamootoo and his colleagues in APNU+AFC promised the sugar workers 20% increase. While they are awaiting COI and while they are awaiting better days to give GUYSUCO workers their 20% increase, why should the sugar workers not get an increase in 2015, just like everybody else got and just as they have always been able to.

In 2013 and 2014, GUYSUCO management proposed zero increases during negotiation with workers. GUYSUCO management rightly made a case that their finances could not permit them to extend any wage and salary increases. The PPP Government stepped in and urged GUYSUCO to agree to wage increases and the PPP Government ensured financial support to GUSUCO to allow these to meet the wages obligations.

It was then called interference by the Minister into the negotiation. Those in APNU+AFC condemned the PPP for supporting wage increases in the sugar industry when the industry was not making a profit. My position and I know the position of the PPP was always and continue to be that GUYSUCO is important to the overall economic and social development of Guyana and we must support GUYSUCO in these troubling times and that support must include the welfare of the workers.

To the Minister of Agriculture and APNU+AFC, the sugar workers deserve a pay increase and you are being foolish to extend this dispute. GUYSUCO has the weather to produce and surpass its target for 2015, and, therefore, you must ensure that this golden opportunity is not lost by discriminatory practices with our workers.

We must never forget that for decades Sugar supported and kept Guyana alive. The sums of money we now invest into GUYSUCO is only a paltry fraction of what Sugar has put into the government and Guyana. There was time when the wages and salaries of public servants, including teachers, police and the army, depended on GUYSUCO. Now that GUYSUCO workers must be compensated like other workers in Guyana, the time has come for Guyana to pay back its debt to Sugar.

Dr. Leslie Ramsammy