Thirty field foremen/forewomen of Enmore Estate who were deemed redundant by the Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc. are presently denied their severance payments. The Corporation redundancy letter to them dated October 24, 2017 reads inter alia “… in accordance with Section 12, subsection (2) (a), (b) and (c) of the Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Act 1997 (TESPA), the Corporation wishes to inform you that your job is being made redundant. As a consequence, this letter serves to give you one (1) month’s notice of the aforementioned in accordance with Section 15, subsection (1) of TESPA 1997.” The letter continues “This notice shall expire on November, 23 2017, hence your last day of work with the Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc., East Demerara Estate”.
The affected group of workers, naturally, expected to receive their payments on their last working day but were disappointed as the Corporation is yet to honour its lawful obligations. The workers related to the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) that the non-payment of their redundancy pay is adding insult to injury as they desperately require their monies to sustain themselves and their families at this time, until, hopefully, some work can be found in the near future.
Our Union finds the delay perplexing given public statements by several State officials, including President David Granger himself, committing that the workers would receive their redundancy pay as the Government moves forward with is heartless plans to shutter estates and cruelly put workers on the road at the usually joyful Christmas Season. The delay certainly casts serious doubts on the Administration’s utterances and we cannot help but wonder whether this is a harbinger of things to come as four thousand workers, in a few days’ time will join the already saturated ranks of the unemployed in our nation.
