THE Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) has filed a fixed date application calling on the High Court to declare that 4,283 employees of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), from the Skeldon, Rose Hall and East Demerara Sugar Estates, who are members of the union and are entitled to severance or redundancy allowance in accordance with the Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Act, Chapter 96:01 be paid.
In the application to the court, which is to be heard by Justice Fidela Corbin-Lincoln on July 20, 2018 at 1:45pm, GAWU has also called for an order to be made directing the respondents, GuySuCo and the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), to pay forthwith to the 4,283 employees of GUYSUCO.
GAWU contends that in accordance with Section 12 (2) (b) of the Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Act, Chapter 96:01, GUYSUCO served notices by way of letters dated various dates in the month of November, 2017, to 4,283 of its employees employed at Skeldon, Rose Hall and the East Demerara Sugar Estates, which served to sever their services with the sugar company.
The Union said too that letters were also sent to an additional 480 GuySuCo employees of which 130 are senior staff and the remaining 350 are members of National Association of Agricultural Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE).
In its application to the court, GAWU said the redundant workers were to receive their redundancy allowance/severance payment not later than December 29, 2017, in accordance with the letter and spirit of Section 21 of the Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Act.
“To date, the said workers were paid only a portion of their redundancy allowance/severance payment and despite the workers’ as well as the applicant’s repeated demands to the first named respondent for payment of the full redundancy allowance/severance payment due, owing and payable to the said workers, the first named respondent has failed and refused to do so,” the filed document stated.
Moreover, GAWU noted that GuySuCo has since transferred all of its assets to NICIL by an order of the Minister of Finance published in the Official Gazette (extraordinary) of Guyana dated December 30, 2017. “Additionally, all the assets of the first named defendant has been collateralised as security for a $30,000,000,000 loan that the first named respondent has or is borrowing from commercial banks,” the applicant stated.
In January this year, the National Assembly approved $1.93B to offset the payment of severance for sugar workers made redundant by the GuySuCo with the opposition expressing appreciation to the government for the payout in a rare show of bipartisanship in the House.
Government had committed to paying the sum of $2.25B to the sugar workers before the end of January 2017, a figure that represented half of the $4.25B it plans paying the workers. The balance government said would be paid before the end of 2018. Agriculture Minister Noel Holder had outlined to the National Assembly the amount of money to be paid to workers in January. In the case of the Skeldon Estate, those workers received $609M, while those at Rose Hall received $705M. The workers at East Demerara and Wales were paid $815M and $150M, respectively.
Additionally, some 1600 workers were paid their full severance given that their total severance stood at $500,000 or less. GAWU is being represented by former Attorney General Anil Nandlall, Manoj Narayan, Sasha Mahadeo-Narayan, Rajendra Jaigobin and Anuradha Deodasingh.
