DDL, unions reach consensus

A statement from Tagman on behalf of DDL said that the company and the three workers’ unions met yesterday and reached an agreement on all the outstanding issues related to workers’ compensation packages. “The agreement, to be formally signed later this week, covers five years including this year, 2010,” the statement said.

A representative from Tagman told Stabroek News last evening that the increase agreed on is “not a flat across-the-board percentage” and that it varies based on different factors.

On Friday, DDL said it could pay its workers a 16 per cent increase in wages and salaries but not the across-the-board increase of 20 per cent that the unions were demanding.  DDL’s Marketing Director Sharda Veeren-Chand said, “Management has been in discussions with the unions for the past six months, regarding their demand for a 20% across-the-board increase in wages and salaries… We made it clear to the union that we could not accept an across the board increase of 20% and we submitted a counter proposal including the rationalisation of the scales which takes the minimum wages earned up by over 16%.”