THE recent one-day strike by sugar workers cost the Guyana Sugar Corporation some 1,500 tonnes of sugar due primarily to the staling of canes and lost opportunity time.GuySuCo is reeling from harsh economic times, but the workers unions have given no guarantees of whether they will inform the company when they will take strike action. The workers, through their unions- Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union and NAACIE had been pressing demands for higher wages and better conditions.

Due to the strike action on October 17, 2016, six factories were not in operation. Factories are usually maintained on Mondays. This operation was affected in all factories, which means that maintenance had to be done on Tuesday October 18, 2016, for grinding to be resumed late on Tuesday, GuySuCo said. According to the company sugar losses across the industry resulting from the one day strike alone was approximately 202 tonnes. This was due primarily to the staling of canes.
However, sugar loss due to total opportunity time, is approximately 1,500 tonnes.

Meanwhile, the corporation said it is disappointed that GAWU is not putting the business first and is not providing the leadership required to encourage the employees to fulfil their roles and responsibilities to the corporation so that they can obtain the full benefits of this second crop in terms of increased incentives and other benefits.

On Wednesday GAWU and the corporation met on the issue of wages, salaries and fringe benefits for 2016. In a statement GuySuCo said at an earlier meeting held on September 19, 2016 it made a comprehensive financial, production and marketing presentation on the prospects of the corporation to the union.

Additionally, there was a meeting with the Corporation Executives and all three Unions on September 29, 2016 where the Corporation’s financial and production forecasts up to the year 2025 was presented and discussed.

The union was informed at those meetings that the Corporation had made a loss of over G$16 Billion in 2015; and that the projected loss for 2016 and 2017 would be almost G$13 Billion and more than G$12 Billion respectively. And in order to cushion the impact of those losses, the Government had provided a subsidy to the tune of G$12 Billion in 2015 and G$9 Billion in 2016. However, the Corporation is seeking an additional G$3.5 Billion in order to sustain its operations to the end of this year. The Union was also advised that in 2017, the Corporation would require a further subsidy of more than G$18 Billion against a backdrop of lower production, reduced market prices, resulting in lower revenue.

“In light of the above grim financial challenges, the Corporation informed the Union and its delegation at a meeting today October 19, 2016, that it did not have the monies required and was unable to award an increase on Wages and Salaries for 2016,” the statement said.

According to GuySuCo the union and their representatives raised several matters pertaining to the corporation’s capital investment programme, future diversification plans, and wage increases, among others. The corporation, on the other hand, enquired whether there would be any more strikes, since it was a requirement that the union provided the corporation with due notice of strike action. “This would allow for better planning by managers to avoid wastage of canes, since if the canes were burnt and not sent to the factory within a specific time period, they would obviously be too stale to grind.” However the union’s response was that the intention of the Union was no business of GuySuCo. “The Corporation finds this attitude hardly one for fostering better relationship between the parties. The corporation is in the middle of the second crop which has been affected negatively by the prolonged dry weather in the first crop. It aims to take full opportunity of the good weather in this crop. The weather condition for the past few weeks was most appropriate for harvesting. We are now missing a good opportunity for increasing production,” GuySuco said.