THE Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) on Saturday held its Berbice Area Conference at the Albion Sports Complex under the theme, “Protecting Workers Rights and Benefits in a Challenging Period.”

The conference attracted approximately 130 delegates and observers from the Albion and Blairmont estates, the Berbice Bridge Company Inc (BBCI) and Amazon Caribbean (Guyana) Limited, where the union enjoys bargaining rights, GAWU said in a release.

According to the union, the conference noted that the future does not appear to be bright, notwithstanding the grandeur-like promises by the administration’s spokespersons that conditions will be greatly improved in the country with the commercial production of oil. GAWU said delegates pointed to loss of jobs in the sugar industry and elsewhere.

The conference, according to GAWU in reviewing the work of the union since their last congress, received the Report of the General Council which was presented by General-Secretary, Seepaul Narine. Several matters of concern were considered at the international, local and workplace levels. At the international level, delegates also expressed their apprehension about the possibility of a new world war; they were upset to note the heightening global inequality, increasing impoverishment, and the swelling of the global army of unemployed.

The conference also passed, unanimously, resolutions on the situation in the sugar industry among others. The union said the convening of the Area Conference is a requirement of its constitution which mandates the organising of two conferences between the union’s congresses. The last congress – the 21st – was held in August, 2016 and the Demerara Area Conference was held in June, 2018.