…crop to roll over into January; 220,000 tonnes milled by end of this week
CHAIRMAN of the Guyana Sugar Corporation Dr. Nanda Gopaul, said the letter to the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU) was not an official move towards de-recognition  of the union, but rather was used as a negotiating tactic, in the same way the union called for 15 percent increase knowing full well that this was impossible.

He was speaking at a press conference yesterday in the studio of the National Communication’s Network (NCN), on Homestretch Avenue. With him were CEO of the Corporation, Paul Bhim, and Deputy CEO, Rajaindra Singh.

“This letter in no way sends notice to GAWU [that the agreement is being terminated]. It highlighted some of the company’s concerns and said that it was considering the option of termination of the agreement,” said the Chairman.

President Bharrat Jagdeo, in a statement two days ago, made it clear that the de-recognition of GAWU is not an option and will not be pursued.

The last two paragraphs of the letter from GuySuCo to GAWU reads:
“The Corporation is extremely disappointed that, as a Union representing almost 90 percent of the workers in the sugar industry, you have failed to discharge your duties in a responsible manner. In both strikes, the collective agreement was violated, and not once did your union join with the Corporation by encouraging workers for improved attendance. The Corporation, in reviewing the many media releases, concluded that you were less than factual, and in so doing, you would have not only mislead the public, but the sugar workers as well…
“The Corporation therefore, seeing that in the moments of desperation where it is burdened by its huge state of indebtedness, and looking helplessly as 480,000 tonnes of canes have to be carried over to the first crop of next year, and no support whatsoever came from your union, is now forced to review its relationship with your union. In view of the many infractions of the collective agreement and the un-supporting stance of your union in current crop, the Corporation wishes to inform you that it is considering to terminate the ‘Recognition and the Avoidance and Settlement of Disputes’ agreement dated February 27, 1976, that currently subsists between your Union and the Corporation.”

The letter, dated December 16, was signed by Human Resources Director of GuySuCo, Jairam Petam, and addressed to the General-Secretary of GAWU, Seepaul Narine.

At the press conference, televised live, Dr. Gopaul said the company thought that the letter would have evoked some form of ‘change of heart’ within the union so that meetings could take place.
“That did not happen, but there was swift condemnation of the letter with no call for the union to behave in a responsible manner,” said Dr. Gopaul.

He said that in the matter, the dire position of the sugar industry needs to be considered. Over the last five years, Dr. Gopaul said there have been many setbacks plaguing the industry, including low turnout, low production and productivity, and bad weather. But he said unlike the present situation, the estates at that time ran out of canes to harvest.
“In 2010, we tried to reverse the shortage of canes in the turnaround plan. We were able to put enough canes in the ground to commence the turnaround process. Despite the constraints, we were able to produce canes that could have resulted in production of 270,000 tonnes of sugar,” he said.
He added that since the commencement of the second crop, there were several strikes in the industry and all of them without notice. According to Gopaul, there were 249 strikes, resulting in the loss of 96,790 man hours of work time.

He said the last strike turned out to be two weeks in length and it occurred with an offer on the table and with no counter-proposal by the union.

“One would have expected that the crisis would have [prompted] reasonable behaviour by GAWU and in upholding the rules governing industrial relations,” the Chairman said.

“The way that the strikes have been occurring resulted in hefty losses – losses in sugar, in sucrose content and in overrun canes,” he said.

Dr. Gopaul said it would have cost the corporation more to take the dry canes out of the ground.

He added that the low turnout of 48.8 percent hurt the chances of achieving more in terms of production and noted that better turnout by the workers would have earned them additional days’ pay.

“We have set the targets to allow workers to benefit from weekly incentives which we give…if there was the turnout and the production targets which would have been achieved, workers would have been able to achieve over 12 days pay on each location,” he said.

Dr. Gopaul said that were the union a responsible one, it would not have stood by and see the demise of the industry.
“We are very concerned about the manner in which these strikes were called,” he said.

MEETING WITH PRESIDENT

He said that tomorrow, sugar workers will meet with President Bharrat Jagdeo at the Guyana International Conference Centre to discuss the concerns of the workers and the plight of the industry.

He said, too, that the Government is to meet with the board and management of GuySuCo before the end of the year to discuss the issue of making additional financing available to the company in its time of need.

According to Dr. Gopaul, discussions had commenced along these lines some weeks ago, but the most recent strike derailed these engagements.

“Ladies and gentlemen our concerns are real, our concerns are genuine. We want to make the union a partner in this industry. We want to continue to discuss in a responsible way, but we will not countenance an abuse of the industrial relations processes and an abuse and violation of the grievance procedure,” said Dr. Gopaul.

Speaking at the meeting, CEO of the company, Paul Bhim, said that several ships came to Guyana to load sugar and had to sail late, or with short tonnage, because they could not wait until the sugar came from the estates to Georgetown for loading.

He said that the ships that waited beyond the contracted time had incurred demurrage charges.

“[For these shipments], we would have received 60 euro more per tonne (an increase of 25 percent). This is opportunity lost,” he said. Bhim said the Corporation had negotiated the increased price successfully under the condition that GuySuCo delivered the 192,000 tonnes to the European market between October 1, 2010 and September 30, 2011. We stand to lose 2.5 million euros if we don’t deliver that 192,000 tonnes by September 30, 2011,” Bhim said.

DEBTS

According to the CEO, the corporation still owes $2.4B in debts, $1.6B of which is overdue. The corporation owes ING Bank of the Netherlands US$4M or $800M.

Further, $3.2B is owed as overdraft to local banks. “[Because the state of indebtedness is quite high] we are probably going to carry over this crop until January 7, 2011,” he said.

“We have no choice. We really need to get some sugar in to send off to Europe to earn the corporation some badly needed cash in order to pay our bills.”

He said that had the company been able to produce 265,000 tonnes of sugar, it would have been able to take care of its debts without resorting to depending on the government for a financial bailout.

“We would have been able to afford a fairly decent wage increase,” said Bhim. He said the shortfall from production – 45,000 tonnes – would have garnered the company about $5B in cash.

According to Bhim, the budget for next year’s production foresees 310,000 tonnes being produced. He said too that the 450,000 tonnes of canes being carried over to the New Year will translate into about 44,000 of sugar. “But we are going to lose some of that sugar because the canes are overripe,” he said.

Further, Gopaul said the company is in dire straits and cannot afford to pay workers any increase at this time, as the company struggles to produce for the next two weeks.

Sugar production at GuySuCo would have reached 220,000 tonnes by the end of this week, said Bhim.