GAWU slams GuySuCo plan to lay off 2,500 by yearend

With GuySuCo retrenching 2,500 more workers by the end of the year, the main sugar union GAWU has again appealed for it to rethink the closure of estates.

Earlier this year, GuySuCo announced that factory operations would end at the East Demerara Estate, Rose Hall and Skeldon and that cane operations would be amalgamated. The 2,500 jobs to be lost from the 17,000-strong industry would come on top of hundreds more from the Wales estate who were made redundant at the end of last year. The planned layoffs would be the single largest in decades.

Yesterday, Head of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), Komal Chand, said the Union is still of the opinion that it is not too late for the sugar company to rethink the closure of several estates and avoid the mass loss of jobs.

At a press conference on Friday held by the sugar company which