– call on Government to end wage freeze and pay severance
Today(December 05, 2018), a large group of sugar workers staged a picketing exercise outside of the Public Building where the 2019 National Budget debate is taking place. The picketers which comprised current and displaced sugar workers are calling on the Government to address positively their crying concerns.
Outside of the barricades erected, workers from Albion, Blairmont and Uitvlugt estates and retrenched cane cutters of shuttered Wales Estate called on the Government and the state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc (GuySuCo) to positively address a pay rise to them. For this group of workers, more than 1,500 days have gone by since they would have received a pay rise. Of course, as is well known, in the period, the cost-of-living has risen significantly largely due to the policies imposed by the Coalition Government. Added to that stark reality, is that the workers lot have declined with average take home pay for sugar workers declining by nearly $300,000 between 2014 and 2017. Undoubtedly, this has further made the bad situation worse.
It isinstructive to note, that the sugar workers remain the only group under the umbrella of the State to have not benefitted from a pay rise since the Coalition Government took office. The actions of the Government are a far cry from what it was saying to the sugar workers prior to it taking the reins. For several years and on numerous occasions,the GAWU recalls some of our now-a-day leaders committed to grant workers significant pay rises. For instance, the November 05, 2011 Kaieteur News quotes now Second Vice President and Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan assaying, in reference to sugar workers’ pay increases, that his Party would “…make the workers even happier with 20 percent…”. Minister Ramjattan’s colleague, First Vice President and Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo, when in the Opposition, in his 2013 Budget Debate address at the penultimate paragraph said “[f]or the AFC, we remain firm on a 10% wage increase for public servants and sugar workers”. Today, the workers, like the GAWU, ask what has happened to those rosy promises? It seems,from all appearances, they are solely intent on fooling the workers. On that score, we remind “once bitten, twice shy”.
In the picket line too, were the former cane cutters of Wales Estate who continue to be denied their severance pay though they are lawfully entitled. In fact, it is disturbing, to record that the approximate 350 workers remain the only group of workers among the thousands that have been made jobless two (2) years ago to have not received their severance payments arising from estate closures. The Government and the GuySuCo has already settled their indebtedness to the other workers who have suffered similar fates.The continued withholding of these workers payments is beyond perplexing and raises serious questions what factors are influenced the non-payment to the workers.
The denial of the Wales cane cutters severance, comes when Prime Minister Nagamootoo is saying that the workers have been paid. The PM is reported by the DPI to say “…those workers from Wales… are now cleared and will receive their severance package”. The GAWU cannot help but wonder whether it is that GuySuCo is acting contrary to a Government directive or is it that the PM has been mis-advised and thus making mischievous statements. The denial also is perpetuated when no less than Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder had said that the workers would finally be paid. During the examination of a supplementary budgetary request on October 31, the Minister assured that the workers would be paid when he was probed about whether the Wales cane cutters were included among the beneficiaries. Moreover, the Minister in the December 04, Guyana Times is reported to have said “…that Government is ready to pay the workers, noting that the funds are available”. So if this is the case, then why not settle the payments.
The treatment of sugar workers, past and present, has been most discriminatory. Today, these hard-working productive Guyanese and their families have found themselves in the face of severe difficulties and hardships. Undoubtedly, the workers have grown restive and have seen the different, unsympathetic, approach adopted. As Guyana and the world, in a few days times, observe the year-end holidays, a time characterized by charity and togetherness, the GAWU calls on the powers-that-be to treat sugar workers fairly and bring an end to the eye pass and disrespect meted out to them.
