The Wales Sugar Factory

…strike for wage increases

BY KRISTEN MACKLINGAM

Thousands of workers from across the sugar belt officially downed tools on Sunday morning to push for higher wages from the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) with hopes that this latest action would result in their favour.

After announcing last week that all the sugar estates had exceeded their targets, GuySuCo would have been caught unawares by this industrial action. Operations at all sugar factories were adversely affected and will cause GuySuCo to lose millions of dollars as a consequence of the workers’ decision to strike for a three-day period.

Guyana Times understands the workers have ‘retaliated’ after the sugar corporation failed to meet with representatives of the Guyana Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) to discuss an increase in wages for sugar workers.

Agriculture Minister Noel Holder

A source close to the union told this newspaper on Sunday that GuySuCo is “avoiding” a meeting with GAWU to have dialogue about proposed increases in the wages for sugar workers who are unionised.

“The sugar corporation is avoiding any meeting with GAWU on proposals for the year 2015. Earlier when we had talked to them about it, they told us to wait until the sugar Commission of Inquiry (COI), which was on-going, to be concluded before they would have discussions with GAWU on the matter. However, the COI has been completed. GuySuCo is still not inviting the Union to engage in the talks,” the source stated.

Guyana Times was told that while the COI report is merely a documentation of recommendations and the final decisions are yet to be made, wage increases for sugar workers were not part of the Commission’s mandate.

“Wages is a substantive matter. The COI report is merely recommendations but the gist of the matter from the workers side is that they want wage increases,” the source informed.

This newspaper was told that workers begun their strike action on Sunday morning.

According to the source, the workers turned up on Saturday and worked until midnight. However, no one turned up for the Sunday morning shift.

“Cane harvesters did not go to work today (Sunday) except maybe a few who were not aware of the strike. It is a virtual stand-still,” this publication was further told.

According to the source, if GuySuCo does not meet the demands of its sugar workers, this may result in a prolonged period of strike action and protests until there is an amicable solution.

It must be reminded that over the past few years, before the month of October or during the first week of October, the sugar corporation would have already indicated a pay hike for its workers.

However, it is almost the beginning of November and GuySuCo has failed to do so for 2015. Given the existing dry weather the sugar industry is losing valuable time for harvesting and the strike action will have a domino effect on production.

Canes which have already been harvested but are yet to be processed will spoil and therefore the sugar corporation will lose millions daily as the strike continues.

However, GuySuCo in a press release on Sunday expressed its disappointment with GAWU’s decision to call on its members to proceed on strike action across the country.

“Their actions have affected all field and factory operations, breaking the prevailing production momentum. The Union is demanding that the corporation commence wages, salaries and fringes benefits negotiations for 2015. The corporation and the Union had a preliminary meeting on September 16, where the corporation informed the Union and the representatives from the various estates that it was unable to commence discussion before the Commission of Inquiry has submit its findings and recommendations,” the sugar entity said.

According to GuySuCo it had subsequently advised the leadership of the GAWU (as recently as Friday October 23, 2015), that it would not be able to commence discussion of the Union’s proposal until the COI report has been considered by the Government and advise is given to the corporation on the way forward.

Meanwhile, Agriculture Minister Noel Holder told Guyana Times on Sunday that it is public knowledge that GuySuCo is operating at major losses and cannot afford wage increases at the moment.

As it relates to workers taking strike action because they believe the COI report does not allow for wage increases, the Agriculture Minister explained that the official inquiry’s findings have to be considered and any conclusion drawn before this is done is premature.

“Before they (findings and recommendations) are considered, because the conditions under which the COI was set up was that they are supposed to submit to the Government by a certain time the initial recommendations , Government is supposed to consider those and send them back to the Commission for any elaboration needed and then a final report would be given. We are now at the situation between the initial submission and the final report. In any event, it would be remiss of Government to get involved in any industrial activity between or anything going on with unions at this stage,” said the Agriculture Minister.

He posited that if the Government were to intervene at this point without perusing and deliberating on the results of the COI then it would “make no sense” having a sugar COI.

“You have to rate their findings, you have to look at their findings, and assess them and then if we accept their findings then we have to go along with that. So I would like to think that what the workers are doing is politically motivated. GuySuCo has been doing very well over the last few weeks, meeting its targets and the management we have put have obviously been working and the workers have been responding. I suspect that the opposition does not like this and I suspect that they might be creating these situations for a strike, an unnecessary strike,” he posited.

According to Minister Holder, persons are very aware of the fact that Government can get involved, as it has done before the COI’s report was completed, such as in the case where the Administration assisted GuySuCo with some finances.

“They know that Government can get involved in helping them to have increases and in loss making situations prior to the findings of the COI. As a matter of fact on the COI is a GAWU economist, and obviously GAWU might know what the findings of the COI are because they had someone on it. So we will not get involved as a Government, to get involved in a situation that is being considered based on the findings of a COI which itself has not been accepted. GuySuCo’s future has financial implications for the country and for agriculture,” he added.

Meanwhile, reports are that GuySuCo is effectively ‘bankrupt’ with its total debt amounting to billions of dollars. For a number of years, the Sugar Corporation has been operating at a loss and has only survived because of the previous Administration’s massive subventions.

Guyana Times understands that at present the Sugar Corporation is being smothered under its current debt and the current cost of production is over US40 cents per pound while world market prices are a third of that.

This means the revenue that GuySuCo receives is not enough to cover its operating costs, thus resulting in the Corporation suffering huge losses annually.

It was also recently disclosed that the company is running on debt financing.

In this regard, there are also overdrafts by institutions from which GuySuCo borrows, but has not been able to repay; hence, it is not considered a ‘sustainable’ situation and the company can be declared “technically” bankrupt.

The APNU/AFC coalition Government in July had established the COI into the operations of GuySuCo.

Among the issues raised included the impact of the industry over the next few years, particularly with the current world price of US11.3 cents per pound of sugar and the current European Union price in the region of US15 cents.(kristenm@guyanatimesgy.com)