– workers bonus payment unrealistic despite good efforts
As at week-ending December 22, sugar production for the year stood at 103,511 tonnes sugar as follows:-
| Estate | First Crop | Second Crop | Year | |||
| Target | Actual | Target | Actual | Target | Actual | |
| Albion | 19,698 | 18,231 | 37,031 | 38,549 | 56,729 | 56,780 |
| Blairmont | 9,736 | 9,333 | 19,091 | 20,123 | 28,827 | 29,456 |
| Uitvlugt | 6,671 | 6,474 | 10,775 | 10,801 | 17,446 | 17,275 |
| Total | 36,105 | 34,038 | 66,897 | 69,473 | 103,002 | 103,511 |
It should be recalled that Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan, in his 2018 National Budget address, had informed the nation that 115,447 tonnes sugar would have been produced this year.
This year, the Corporation has said it wishes to reward its workers for their good efforts this year with a bonus payment. The bonus, as the Corporation terms it, is by no means a new initiative. In fact, the arrangement under consideration is identical to the Annual Production Incentive (API) scheme which was suspended for a few years now. The API, as GAWU shared before, dates back to colonial times and is a form of deferred earnings premised on annual sugar production. For the workers, the fact that the Corporation has offered such an incentive is a clear indication that their collective voices and actions could not be ignored by the GuySuCo hierarchy and, possibly, the powers-that-be.
While happy about this development, workers remain concerned that the Corporation has yet to consider the Union’s claim for a 15 per cent rise-in-pay retroactive to January 01, 2018. At the end of the day, the bonus while welcome, at the same time, will see workers in 2019 earning the same rates-of-pay that were approved since in 2014. At this time, the GAWU and GuySuCo have already concluded discussions on the non-wage benefits. Those engagements resulted in a few improvements being secured
At this time, the GAWU has put forward a counter-proposal regarding the ‘bonus’ and the Corporation has committed to examining our suggestion. The Union, nevertheless, believes that this stop-gap measure cannot be deemed as a substitute for a pay rise which has been denied for far too long though the workers, in spite of the circumstance, continue to demonstrate their importance to the successes being recorded. Also, it is reasonable to expect that the present leadership, having recognized the value of the API incentive, would undertake the removal of the suspension and see such a practice as good for the industry’s progress. The GAWU, at this time, looks forward to the Corporation, in a similar vein, positively considering a pay rise for year 2018.
