The Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union’s (GAWU) two-day protest over what it called GuySuCo’s high-handed approach in ongoing wage negotiations has ended and workers are to return to the estates today.

President of GAWU, Komal Chand said yesterday the union is eager to resume discussions on the issue “at the earliest possible time”, but he pointed out that GuySuCo’s position is not clear.

He said the Corporation has procrastinated long enough on the issue and is yet to indicate whether it is willing to sit down early next week.

“I would hope that they are willing to resume the talks because we have already made submissions to the Chief Labour Officer and it is time to move this process forward…”, Chand stated. He insisted that the workers must be properly compensated, but noted that the current state of the industry compels them to compromise.

The strike action was prompted by GuySuCo’s sudden withdrawal from the second conciliatory meeting on Tuesday, according to GAWU but the Sugar Corporation later said that “the decision to withdraw from the talks is in keeping with standard industrial relations practice which dictates that discussions should not take place in an atmosphere of duress.” It said also the position was taken after a section of workers attached to the LBI Estate resorted to strike action to vent their disapproval of the Corporation’s wage offer for the year 2009 among other issues.

GAWU has contended that since the Corporation realizes that its initial production target of 290,000 “is far from realization” it is attempting through its abrupt withdrawal from the negotiations to blame the workers’ strike action/s for the poor performance of the industry again.