…says not realistic, too late in coming
The Guyana Sugar Corporation and the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union will meet tomorrow with a view to discussing wages for 2010, since the latter has rejected the former’s proposal on November 9 as unrealistic.
The two entities met on Monday at the ninth negotiating meeting on wage/salary increases for 2010 and for the first time since the announcement by the Corporation of its wage/salary proposal for 2010. At Monday’s meeting, GAWU, according to its press release, demonstrated to the Corporation that it (GuySuCo) did not in fact offer any increase in pay, the Union said in a press release. The Corporation had proposed an across-the-board increase of five per cent should the production exceed 270,000 tonnes, the offer would decline to three per cent for a production of 260,000 to 269,000 tonnes and should the production fall to 250,000 tonnes a two   per cent one off, non-sustainable, increase would be awarded.
“The Union contended that the Corporation, at the end of the year, would produce far below 250,000 tonnes of sugar. Therefore, its so-called offer in actuality would result in no pay increase and not even a one-off award,” GAWU contended.
The Union was adamant that this year’s increase in pay proposed by the Corporation must be related to this year.
“The proposal by the Corporation to link a five percent increase in pay with a production of 270,000 tonnes – a production which might be achievable till February next year, should workers continue to work beyond this year for this year’s production, and of course if the rainy weather for the rest of November, December and January does not intervene,” the Union said.
It said that the “brand new proposal” by the Corporation to determine a wage increase “can’t be honourable [since] it was made in November of the year and not in January.”
The Union said that since the Corporation has placed no offer on the table, it requested the Corporation do so “at last.”
According to GAWU, the industrial relations personnel of the Corporation agreed at the conclusion of the meeting to return to their principals “with a view to obtaining a real proposal and to meet the Union again on Thursday November 18, 2010.”
GuySuCo, on November 9, had said that if the turnout was at the 80 percent level as estimated in the company’s budgeted numbers, production would have been approximately 40,000 tonnes sugar more than what has been achieved for the year to date.
The company said that in this scenario, there would have been little threat of carrying forward canes to the first crop 2011, which at the moment is seemingly imminent. As of November 8, 2010, overall sugar production figure stood at 190,754 tonnes, the corporation said.
GuySuCo said that against this “precarious” production and financial backdrop, it had urged the Union to strongly consider its proposal for 15 percent increase in pay this year, saying it is clear that the industry’s ability to afford the proposed levels of increases is strained beyond its limit.