After being on strike for a week, GAWU members are set to resume work on the various sugar estates today.

President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) Komal Chand told this newspaper yesterday that workers on the estates had met in the morning and decided unanimously to return to work today. He said that the management of GuySuCo was contacted and was told to prepare tasks for the estate workers. Chand said that the intention was to have a return to normalcy on the estates as soon as possible.

Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday afternoon, Chand said GAWU was still waiting to receive an official letter from the Labour Minister Manzoor Nadir outlining the details of the Arbitration Process. The union President said that while they had received notification via email, this information needed to be communicated via an official letter.  Chand disclosed that as part of the arbitration process, the union needed to prepare a Memorandum outlining their position on the matter.

On Wednesday, Nadir finalized the membership of the three-person arbitration tribunal naming Sonya Roopnauth, Yog Mahadeo and Dr Gobind Ganga as the panelists. Roopnauth, Budget Director within the Ministry of Finance, was the corporation’s nominee while Mahadeo,  the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Guyana Telephone and Telegraph company (GT&T) was nominated by the union.  Dr Ganga, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Guyana, was selected as the panel’s Chairman by Nadir. The Deputy Chief Labour Officer Clive Nurse has been appointed as Secretary to the tribunal.

The tribunal was been set up with two terms of reference. First “to enquire into the difference between the Guyana Sugar Corporation and the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union as it relates to wages and salaries to be paid to those categories of employees of the Corporation that are represented by the Union for the year 2009 and to make an award as the tribunal deems fit.”

“The Tribunal shall commence its work on Monday, November 9 2009 and shall give its final decision and report within five weeks”, was the second of the terms of reference.

Nadir had also urged all striking workers to resume work yesterday but this call was not heeded.

According to Chand, while the union wanted to go to arbitration under the agreement principle, it was advised that the law took precedence over the labour agreement. He said that this left the union no choice but to abide by the compulsory arbitration ordered by the Labour Minister.

Following the deadlock in conciliation proceedings between the union and GuySuCo last week Thursday, Nadir imposed compulsory arbitration in the wage dispute. This came after the Sugar Corporation withdrew its initial offer to GAWU of a 3 percent increase in wages and salaries for the year, saying that it was prepared to go to arbitration. GuySuCo says that this was done in order to facilitate the arbitration process.  However, this angered the workers who decided to engage in industrial action.