-Chand

The current negotiations between GuySuCo and GAWU over the payment of the Annual Production Incentive (API) to sugar workers is likely to go to conciliation under the chairmanship of the Labour Ministry.

According to the President of GAWU Komal Chand, GuySuCo has indicated to the union its willingness to take the matter to the Labour Ministry for conciliation and that an application to the ministry for the convening of the process was in the pipeline. Efforts to confirm this with GuySuCo yesterday proved unsuccessful.  How-ever, according to Chand, the formal application is yet to be made.

GAWU is in support of the move towards conciliatory proceedings, since the laws provide for such action when there is an impasse in such a matter, Chand said yesterday.  The union is now awaiting the formal application by the sugar corporation and the subsequent intervention by the Labour Ministry, he explained.

According to Chand, GAWU will be continuing to press for a nine-day pay incentive for 228,000 tonnes of sugar. Should the target of 228,000 tonnes be 7,500 tonnes less or more, a day’s pay could be added or subtracted, Stabroek News was told.

When GuySuCo and the union met last Wednesday, GuySuCo repeated its incentive offer of four work days, which Chand said was rejected, since it was not in keeping with the reward of days of pay offered in past years. He said the union asked that the matter be referred to the GuySuCo board for review. The union was then subsequently informed of the intention by GuySuCo to go to conciliation.

In a release issued during mid-December, GuySuCo said that it was going to pay the Annual Production Incentive in late January as has become the tradition.

Recently, relations between the sugar workers and corporation have been strained, with frequent strikes by the workers as they protested for increased wages.

In October, after wage negotiations between the union and the corporation reached a deadlock, Labour Minister Manzoor Nadir intervened and ordered compulsory arbitration. The three-member panel later ruled in December that workers be granted a retroactive three-percent wage hike, which was payable before March 2010. This ruling of the tribunal displeased the workers, who voiced their displeasure over the ruling and related issues during protests. They also insisted that the wage increase be paid before Christmas.  The sugar corporation was able to put stop-gap measures in place and pay the workers their retroactive wage increase before Christmas.