FOLLOWING discussions with the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) yesterday at the corporation’s staff club Ogle, East Coast Demerara, the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE) along with the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), Guyana Labour Union (GLU) staged a protest, in an effort to express their dissatisfaction in the corporation’s decision as it relates to collective bargaining.

A delegation from all seven estates representing NAACIE met with GuySuCo at the Ogle staff club. However, like GAWU last Friday, the NAACIE was also told about the Corporation’s need to be guided by a framework flowing from what is now understood to be an incomplete Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the sugar industry report.
The meeting was held in a cordial atmosphere where the Chief Executive Officer Mr. Errol Hanoman informed the Union’s team of the losses suffered as a result of the three days’ strike called by GAWU.
He indicated that some estates are still feeling the effects of that strike as a result of the staling of canes and the breaking of the production momentum that was generated over the past few weeks.
“GuySuCo failed to produce approximately 6,000 tonnes of sugar which would have generated $450M in cash revenue which is now delayed and a permanent loss of some 450 tonnes sugar valued $38M as a result of deterioration of the canes,” said Hanoman.
Mr. Hanoman appealed to NAACIE and its members for their patience as they await a basis to guide the negotiation process. Given that there will be negotiations with the union but asked that they be patient as the road map to secure the future of the industry is being developed.
Hanoman cautioned the union on the loss of goodwill developed over the past weeks prior to the GAWU strike and he explained that the opportunity still exists for their members to earn tax free incentives over the remaining six to seven weeks of the crop.
According to Head of NAACIE, Kenneth Joseph, the meeting did not mention anything about salary negotiations but instead they were told of the delay with the final report of the GuySuCo Commission of Inquiry.
“We were given a history of the crisis that the company [GuySuCo] is now claiming that it finds itself in…We were invited to hear and not to negotiate; the company is not in a position to negotiate,” said Joseph.
He explained that when the issue was brought up, GuySuCo could not provide any date or time frame for wage talks.
“The last question I asked is when would they be prepared to negotiate? And I was advised I might know better than them…so it is correct for me to say that GuySuCo does not know when it will negotiate,” he told reporters.
Having submitted wage and other proposals in the first quarter of this year for GuySuCo to consider and engage in Collective Bargaining.
Although since 1997, there is a law – the Trade Union Recognition Act (TURA) – through which Section 23 (1) makes it compulsory for bargaining to take place, the behemoth Corporation continues to flout it. The referred section of the Act reads:-
Head of GAWU, Komal Chand disclosed that “Where a trade union obtains a certification of recognition for workers comprised in a bargaining unit in according with this Part, the employer shall recognise the union, and the union and the employer shall bargain in good faith and enter into negotiations with each other for the purpose of collective bargaining.”
GAWU represents thousands employed in the field and factories; NAACIE the supervisory and clerical staffers; and the GLU the workers at the Demerara Sugar Terminal. Despite appeals to the Corporation to meet at the bargaining table, the Unions and by extension their members are becoming frustrated with the stance of GuySuCo.
As a red herring the corporation is using the recommendations of the Sugar Commission of Inquiry as the stumbling block. It appears that the government has deemed the report of the CoI as incomplete. Minister Noel Holder is reported to have said that the report is in need of “tightening”. What then will be GuySuCo’s new excuse for not talking and negotiating?
GAWU at a meeting with GuySuCo on October 30, 2015, was advised that the Corporation is awaiting a framework within which the negotiations would take place. The framework, GAWU understood, was being awaited from the Government possibly through GuySuCo’s Board of Directors.
“The productive sugar workers of the corporation must not be used as a football. In the interest of the industry, the workers, the corporation, the three (3) sugar unions call for the immediate engagement without further procrastination between the unions, on one hand, and the Sugar Corporation, on the other, with a view to bring a speedy resolution of the wage/salary hike for all sugar workers for year, 2015,” said Chand.