President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) Komal Chand yesterday told Stabroek News that the union expects to be consulted on the arbitration tribunal to deliberate on a wage dispute which has sparked two severe strikes in the industry this month.
The Ministry of Labour ordered compulsory arbitration on Tuesday after a conciliation process conducted by the Chief Labour Officer Mohammed Akeel could not arrive at a settlement between the two parties.
Chand reiterated that the 5.5% offer by the Sugar Corporation was “meagre,” “unacceptable” and could not arrest the erosion of the worker’s purchasing power. Workers on all eight grinding estates went on strike on Tuesday. They are expected back on the job today.
Sugar workers from the Enmore Estate on Wednesday told Stabroek News that a pay increase is a survival issue and ought not to be taken lightly by the sugar corporation and by extension, the Government of Guyana.
Chand said that the wages paid to sugar workers has a significant “multiplying effect” in terms of its support and buttressing of a number of small businesses and other entrepreneurial initiatives located in the respective sugar producing communities.
The Union in a press release on Wednesday had said it wished to note that if the Corporation fails to maintain competitive rates of pay there will be a dwindling of its labour pool similar to the days of the late 80’s and early 90’s when the industry was plagued by the lack of an adequate workforce. In those years sugar production declined considerably as follows 1988: 167,550; 1989; 164,800; 1990: 129,920 and 1991: 156,690.
Chand said in response to Guysuco’s stated position that a 14 percentage pay hike would result in bankruptcy for the corporation that the problem of the corporation was “poor management” reiterating as the union did in a press release that over the years 2005-2007 sugar production averaged 260,000 tonnes declining from its average production level of 320,000 during the years 2002 to 2004.
Chand commented that a significant encumbrance to production and productivity was the practice of poor crop husbandry on the part of Guysuco which would result in stunted growth.
