THE Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) has come out in support of retired GuySuCo workers who picketed the corporation outside of the LBI Community Centre on Friday.

In a release, the union said the pensioners are extremely dismayed by attempts by the state-owned sugar company to demand that their pensions be sent to the commercial banks for payments.

Currently, the pensioners uplift their pensions weekly, and in some cases monthly, from a number of centres close to where they reside. This arrangement had been in place for decades now.

The pensioners are contending that the arbitrary change in the payment mechanism places additional burdens on them, since for some of their colleagues, it would mean having to travel to the nearest bank to uplift a meagre pension.

GAWU said the problem is compounded for those pensioners who do not have bank accounts.

“Some pensioners have shared with us [that] they lack certain essential pre-requisites like TIN certificates, which we should not forget one has to pay for to obtain; or they may reside with their children and, therefore, would not have a proof of address. Some even have the real difficulty of having sufficient sums to satisfy the minimum balance to open a bank account. This new arrangement is being imposed in circumstances of rising crime, where the aged and pensioners are also vulnerable, a factor to consider and not to be easily dismissed. It is indeed saddening that GuySuCo has chosen to overlook these realities that the pensioners, some in their 70s, and 80s, face and encounter,” GAWU said.

According to GAWU, the treatment of these former sugar workers whose energies and dedication helped to build the sugar industry and contributed to nation building is disheartening and disturbing.

“It is generally accepted that we treat persons at this stage of their life with respect and dignity and we need to be cognisant of the difficulties they face on several fronts. We urge GuySuCo, as an established state entity in our society, that it seeks to alleviate and not aggravate the challenges of its former workers on whose contributions we gratefully stand,” the release concluded.