The Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc. (GuySuCo) on Wednesday met with a delegation from the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU) and the workers’ representatives from the Wales Estate, Cane Harvesting and Cane Transport sections, to discuss the employment status of these two categories.The meeting was informed that the Corporation along with the Union’s General Secretary had held earlier discussions with the cane harvesters, where the Corporation expressed its preference to have this category continue in its employ. Since the end of the Second Crop 2016, a team from GuySuCo had been engaged in a process of determining suitable alternative placement in order to retain both the Cane Harvesting and Cane Transport employees.
The Uitvlugt Estate is preparing to increase its production from 20,000 to 40,000 tonnes of sugar annually. However, this is one of the estate’s that has a heavy dependence on manual labour since the weather patterns (primarily heavy rainfall) are not suitable for mechanization.
With this demand for labour at the Uitvlugt Estate and the transitioning of the Wales Estate out of sugar production; the Corporation sought to explore the possibility of retaining the cane harvesters and cane transport employees at Wales Estate. The employees from both categories mentioned will be transported to Uitvlugt Estate on a daily basis.
This decision was also influenced by views expressed by the majority of employees during various protest actions on their preference to keep their jobs. Currently there are more than 950 employees on register at Wales Estate, out of which 650 will remain as employees of that estate.
The Uitvlugt Estate is schedule to commence its First Crop on 11 February, 2017 and the Union’s delegation was informed that work will be made available to the cane harvesters along with the cane transport employees from the Wales Estate. The Corporation has examined and exhausted all alternative to keep the employees and to provide meaningful available work at Wales and Uitvlugt Estates, as such, redundancy was the last option.
Further, the Corporation exhorts the Union’s delegation to see this decision regarding the future employment of Cane Harvesters and Cane Transport employees, as meaningful and in the best interest of the employees, their families, communities, Guyana and the Union. The Corporation’s decision was also guided by the opinions expressed by those employees and the pleas of residents from neighbouring communities. The meeting concluded with the parties agreeing that they will in the upcoming week, have sessions informing all employees from the two categories of the benefits and rational for the decision, and commended the initiative.