The Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), like the public servants, was deeply dismayed when it learnt that the Government would not pay any year-end bonus payments to its employees. The thousands employed by the State must have been eagerly looking forward to payment which they have enjoyed in 2015 and 2016. Some may have even planned on what comforts the bonus sum would have brought them and their family during the upcoming festive season.
From what we have read and heard, the Government is arguing that there is no fiscal space to meet the payments. For the workers this is indeed saddening and speaks to the priority they are accorded. While monies cannot be found to ease the burdens the workers face or to assist them to make the Christmas Season more joyful for their children, we, at the same time, see monies being found to meet other expenses which need not be incurred. In recent times, for instance, we have seen a massive publicity blitz, involving fanciful billboards and radio advertisements, to promote the 2018 National Budget.
We also found it disturbing that in seeking to justify the denial, the Government has pointed to sums being utilized to fund infrastructural projects such as the East Coast Demerara road or the expansion of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport. As far as we are aware, those projects are foreign-funded and, therefore, cannot be used as a pretext to deny the hardworking workers a deserved bonus payment. Furthermore, the expenditures that flow from the conduct of those projects serve to spur income and consumption which enhances our fiscal space.
At this time, the GAWU calls on the Government to carefully re-consider and fully re-examine the possibility of a year-end bonus payment to the workers. Given the added pressures and heavier burdens that the workers have faced and are facing, it is a sum that will certainly give them some breathing room and make their Christmas Season a bit brighter.
Our Union also calls for the productive sugar workers who were denied pay rises in 2015 and 2016 as well as Annual Production Incentive (API) last year to be treated equally with their counterparts in the Government and to address their pay rise concerns and for them to be awarded a like bonus payment. At this time, we take the opportunity to call on the Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc (GuySuCo) to address the Union’s wage/salary claim for this year which is before GuySuCo since September 05, 2017.
