More than 300 former employees of the defunct Diamond Sugar Estate turned up to uplift their severance benefits at the Diamond Secondary School yesterday as emotions ran high on “the ending of an era” of sugar cultivation on the East Bank of Demerara estate.
A similar exercise last Tuesday was rescheduled to yesterday after the union representing the workers raised several questions regarding the payment. In total, over $209M was paid to the 381 sugar workers – 41 of whom had to make queries. The exercise ran smoothly with only a few hiccups as many workers said that they were happy to uplift their payments since they have been fighting their case through the union for months. Many said too they had sought other employment.
Initially, the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) had taken the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) to court over the
