Dear Editor,
The Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc (GuySuCo) wishes to respond to a letter that was published in the Stabroek News on August 19, 2016 under the caption ‘GAWU sent more than 12 letters to GuySuCo for which no acknowledgement has been received’.
Editor, GuySuCo has over 17,000 employees on its payroll and approximately 80,000 Guyanese who are depending on the corporation to be productive. During the out-of-crop season our staff on the estates would tell you, that the residents and business people in communities around the estates were all enquiring when the second crop will start. When smoke is coming through the chimneys of the estates, those communities are vibrant and boisterous, they are blooming.
About two weeks ago the second crop started and GuySuCo is prepared to manage a responsible business to the benefit of its all of stakeholders, and therefore finds it unproductive to continue to play the games which the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) has become so accustomed to playing. If GuySuCo is not productive and cannot pay the same employees that GAWU is encouraging to strike left, right and centre, the union will confront the corporation with another issue which will be non-payment of employees.
With reference to the letter by Mr Narine, the corporation categorically states that it is in receipt of only two letters from GAWU with regard to the ongoing strike at East Demerara Estate (EDE) and not twelve as published, therefore GAWU is blatantly giving information that is not true. The letters from GAWU are dated August 15 and 17, 2016 and the corporation’s responses are dated August 16 and 17, 2016 (letters provided).
The union’s first letter stated that a meeting was held on August 4, 2016. and in our response we clarified that “no meeting was held on August 4, 2016 at the Corporation’s Ogle Office” as was being claimed.
In the letter to the union dated August 16, 2016, the corporation stated, “contrary to your Union’s statement to the media, this was the only correspondence received by the Corporation since the commencement of the strike at EDE”.
Further, in the said letter the corporation implored the union to advise its members to resume duty since this will pave the way for further discussions between GuySuCo and GAWU in keeping with industrial relations practices.
This position was reiterated in our second letter to the union on August, 17, 2016. It should be noted that the union has never acknowledged the corporation’s responses.
With respect to the rest of the letter, it is a repeat of what was said by the union at its press conference on Friday, August 12, 2016 and carried by the media thereafter. A full response from the corporation was sent to all media houses on Monday August 15, 2016.
With regard to the aforementioned the corporation is obligated to release both the letters received from the GAWU along with the corporation’s responses.
Yours faithfully,
Audreyanna Thomas
Senior Communications Officer
GuySuCo
