It is indeed good news that the strike by sugar workers at Wales Estate has been amicably resolved and an escalation into a prolonged work stoppage averted because the sugar industry simply cannot afford such a situation as it is in the midst of reversing the trend of production as it grapples with its financial problem.

However, it would seem that some managers of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO) has interpreted the cost cutting measures instituted by the Corporation to mean squeezing workers and under paying them. Well if it is so, and one would hope not, then these managers need to be re-educated and reoriented because by no stretch of imagination cost cutting could mean paying workers unjust prices for the tasks they perform because if it were so then that would certainly invite chaos and seriously curtail production output because it is the workers who turn wheels of production and if their dissatisfaction will certainly have adverse effects on output.

Those who have knowledge of how the sugar industry operates would know that the day to day managers on the sugar estates have a minimum and maximum limit within which they are authorised to fix prices for tasks. Therefore, they have the ability to be flexible as the situation demands. This is only not applicable if the prices demanded by workers are beyond their authorised maximum limits in which case higher management will have to step in. So these day to day managers have a crucial and pivotal role in resolving price disputes but as mentioned above some of them seem to interpret cost cutting to mean paying unfair prices and squeezing the workers.

A few weeks ago this column had cautioned about the important role of managers in ensuring the smooth turning of the wheels of production.

Workers are reasonable people and would not want to curtail production without good reason because they are hurting themselves by depriving themselves of monetary gains but it is a sacrifice that they make to protect themselves in the long term.

Through a spirit of compromise the price dispute at Wales was successfully resolved and this is indeed a positive development. In fact, compromise should be the watchword and motto of management and workers in all disputes because it is the best way to avoid ugly situations developing which harms the workers, the industry and the national economy.

GAWU and the Corporation agreed that workers at the Wales Estate will receive $383 per bed for the clearance of obstacles (grass, bushes and vines) in the field.

However, there were two disturbing aspects pertaining to the strike-one involving accusations by GUYSUCO that the strike was illegal and the other pertaining to an allegation of arson in relation to the burning of 13 hectares of cane.

If the canes were indeed burnt by arsonists then that should be forthrightly condemned and investigated and the perpetrators dealt with by the full force of the law.

With respect to the accusation of the strike being illegal, President of GAWU, Komal Chand firmly rejected this contention picture of the industry countering that the strike was justifiable as the workers had been working under poor conditions.

He disclosed that he was informed by the estate management that 49 per cent of its cultivation is in a poor state, and that eight beds of cane can hardly fill a punt, when under normal circumstances, two beds could do this.

This, he said, is a loss to the Corporation. Apart from this, there are other instances where workers work under abnormal conditions.

The Wales Estate management, Chand warned, will have to improve their payment rates to workers in these areas as well, or there will be more strikes.

Deeming a strike illegal is a difficult call but it is strange that management should be squabbling over whether the strike was illegal rather than deal with whether the grievances were genuine and if so work diligently towards finding a solution.

This is precisely one of the problems in our society we spend too much time and energy behind the lesser important issues rather than focus on what is of primary importance, and in this instance it was ending the dispute amicably as quickly as possible.

One would now hope that for the remainder of the crop there will be minimal work stoppages and if and when they do occur they are expeditiously resolved because any other course would not be good for both the industry and the workers.