A group of Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) workers at the Wales Estate on West Bank Demerara yesterday protested a decision by the corporation to have their colleagues uplift their emoluments in Georgetown.

The protesters, most whom were not affected by the situation, stage the demonstration in solidarity with their colleagues who were in the fields during this action.

Workers asked to be paid at the estate office at Wales.

GuySuCo made the pronouncement after a Demerara Bank Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) at the estate from which some 80 temporary workers receive their weekly wages, was made redundant one month ago.

Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) Field Officer, Mr. Ricardo Persaud, told the Guyana Chronicle the move by the company is a financial burden to the workers who have families to maintain and bills to pay.

He pointed out that a worker has to pay some $ 400.00 for transportation to receive his remuneration from the Demerara Bank ATM in Camp Street Georgetown, and return home, and this from an average wage of $ 7,000.

Persaud said too that the new arrangement is a security risk for the affected employees.

In addition, the travelling results in a loss of working hours; some workers have to travel from the estate to the Camp Street ATM at least twice before they receive their wages, and worse, they have no money on Fridays, which is the market day in Wales.

The picket line outside the Wales Estate compound.

The GAWU representative said the union had asked the corporation to pay the workers in cash at its Wales Estate office, as it has been doing for hundreds other workers, but to no avail.

He said senior GuySuCo officials had told him that their latest move was made because of a robbery at one of their offices at West Bank Demerara earlier in the year.

But that arrangement, he emphasised, is not guided by any written agreement between the unions representing the workers and the sugar company.

Persaud noted that some 40 of the 80 workers are represented by GAWU, 29 by National Association of Agricultural Commercial and Industrial Employees (NACCI) and the remainder have no union affiliation.

They include dock workers, weeders, planters, workshop assistants and factory employees.

Persaud said GAWU intends to have the matter discussed at the level of the Ministry of Labour if GuySuCo pays no heed to the workers’ concerns

Another GAWU Field Officer, Mr. Mandad Singh, said the protest is one in solidarity with the affected and the action might continue if their demands are not met.

Singh contended too that the workers travelling to Georgetown to secure their remuneration is not only expensive but is a security risk, because many of them, after they collected their wages, would usually take a drink and could become easy targets for robbers.
He appealed to GuySuCo to look into the workers situation and revert to paying those temporary on the job at the estate with effect from June 13, 2009.

Meanwhile, when the Guyana Chronicle contacted the bank’s Georgetown headquarters, an official, who requested not to be named, confirmed that the ATM at Wales had been shut down permanently some three weeks ago.

The reason given by the official was that the company had decided to move the machine to a Sheriff Street, Georgetown, supermarket.