A full turnout of sugar workers, who had been on strike since Monday over increased wages and salaries, is expected at the La Bonne Intention (LBI) and the Rose Hall sugar estates today.
The two estates continued to be affected by low staff turnout yesterday, but officials at the Guyana Agricultural and General Worker’s Union (GAWU) told this newspaper yesterday that all workers are expected back at the estates today. The union continues to await word from the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) on the continuation of talks. GAWU said the workers had been reluctant to continue working on the aforementioned estates, citing the wage issues.
Relevant officials at GuySuCo could not be reached for comment yesterday. The corporation, in a release on Wednesday, stated that its operations were being affected by the prolonged strike action of harvesters attached to the two estates in question. The corporation said, “even more disappointing is that workers would have gained an extra day’s pay at Rose Hall for achieving their weekly production target last week as part of an increase in production industry wide”.
GuySuCo maintains that any reasonable offer for wages and salaries increases for 2010 must be contingent on the industry at least achieving the revised target of 264,000 tonnes of sugar.The entity encouraged workers to “understand [that] the reality of the current situation facing the industry dictates that all stakeholders have to play their part to turn the fortunes of the sugar industry around”.
GuySuCo said this week that it is willing to have the unions audit its financial statements to verify that its financial position supports its stance that it cannot meet the unions’ demands. The corporation noted that the sugar workers have played a major part in assisting the corporation through the difficult period experienced and it appealed to them to continue to support the industry as they can only benefit from its turnaround.
