The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) is urging Wales Estate workers to keep their jobs rather than to request severance and then seek re-employment.The Corporation issued the call after receiving information that some persons are advising the employees to request severance and then seek re-employment.
According to GuySuCo, this advice is counterproductive and highly illogical since it needs the services of these persons.
The severance is a one-off payment, and the Corporation said employees need to seriously consider what happens after the severance payment is expended.
And on that note, it has contended that continuous employment and the numerous benefits is a better option.
GuySuCo had announced that after much consultation with workers and the unions, 650 workers will be retained, some of whom will operate at Wales and some at Uitvlugt.
The release also noted that the move by the workers is confusing since they had protested to retain their jobs, and are now protesting to be put out of those jobs.
This is happening in light of the Uitvlugt Estate being scheduled to commence First Crop on February 11, 2017 and the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union’s (GAWU) delegation and employees from the Wales Estate being informed that work will be made available to the cane harvesters, along with the cane transport employees.
Workers were also informed that tools will be distributed on Thursday, February 9, and work will be available as from Friday, February 10, at Uitvlugt Estate, GuySuCo said.
The Corporation also expressed disgust at the behaviour of GAWU.
“We are frustrated and fed-up of these games which GAWU has become so accustomed to engaging in. GuySuCo has concluded that GAWU is not interested in the well–being of our employees, rather their thrust is more about self-preservation, keeping GAWU in business. Therefore, they continue to use tactics of appealing to the emotions of various sections of the public; what is ironic is that now that GuySuCo is doing what GAWU so vehemently fought for, GAWU is rejected it.”

ANTI-GUYSUCO TACTICS
According to the Corporation, GAWU is using anti-business, anti-management, anti-discipline and anti-GuySuCo tactics to exploit employees from Wales Estate “to gain mileage and for self-preservation”.
It said since January 2016 when the announcement was made to transition the Wales Estate out of sugar, GAWU commenced a campaign against GuySuCo.
GuySuCo claimed that the union mobilised civil society, private sector, residents from the Wales community, influential leaders, and regional and international trade unions around the notion, that the Government and GuySuCo wanted to get rid of the sugar industry and that this process had started at Wales.
“For instance on March 7, 2016, the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF), based in Switzerland, sent a letter to the Minister of Agriculture which was also widely publicised in the local press; the letter was titled ‘Concerns: Closure of the Wales Sugar Estate, West Demerara’.
“And, on May 6, 2017, GAWU and National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE) secured an injunction against GuySuCo which restrained the Corporation from implementing decisions relative to making workers from Wales Estate redundant. That injunction has since been withdrawn.
“GuySuCo nevertheless continued to making positive strides, one such by declaring that as a part of the Corporation’s strategy to transition into a sustainable business, the Uitvlugt Estate is being upgraded to increase its production from 20,000 to 40,000 tonnes of sugar annually. However, this is one of the estates that depend heavily on manual labour since the weather patterns (primarily heavy rainfall) are not suitable for mechanisation,” the release said.
GuySuCo believes that Uitvlugt Estate has a lot of potential to become one of the more productive estates but said GAWU would have to encourage the employees to take up the offer of employment.
In this way, it said, the estate’s production will be boosted significantly and this will assist in enabling GuySuCo and the sugar industry to rebound.