GAWU is committed to good, positive relations with GuySuCo

Dear Editor,
GuySuCo says that GAWU correspondences are dealt with professionally. Maybe it is that GuySuCo has redefined the word. We say this taking into account that our correspondence of September 21 to the company’s CEO regarding the payment of wages on September 22 was not even acknowledged.
We further wish to remind the company’s spokesperson that the Union’s claim towards improving workers’ pay and conditions and benefits remains unaddressed at this point in time, in stark violation of the timelines set out in the Recognition and the Avoidance and Settlement of Disputes Agreement. We say this because letters concerning workers’ matters, some weeks old, remain unanswered. We wonder where is the professionalism that the GuySuCo spokesperson speaks about. Quite clearly, it seems that the word professionalism has taken on a new meaning in GuySuCo’s context.
We are then accused of encouraging workers to engage in work stoppages. Again, it seems that the Corporation has fallen off its rocker. Many of those stoppages that GuySuCo speaks of occur in the early morning hours, very much before our Union’s offices begin to operate. One wonders how we can encourage a stoppage when we are not even aware of the situation. Moreover, why would a worker — waking up in the wee hours of the morning, and having his wife waking up even earlier than him to prepare his meals — go to work just to resort to strike? But that is exactly what the Corporation is seeking to say. It seems rationality has completely departed the Corporation’s mindset.
The fact that the workers are forced to engage in work stoppages obviously speaks to the pressures they face when they must confront weedy, vine-infested and grassy fields, which require much greater efforts on their part to clear, and an arrogant attitude as they seek to obtain reasonable payments for the additional work they are required to undertake.
GAWU is then charged with impacting “production and productivity and the security of employment”. But is it the GAWU that is proposing to close and sell-out estates? Is it the GAWU that is not applying inputs in a timely manner, or not applying inputs altogether in some cases? Is it the GAWU that is making decisions to cease cane planting? Is it the GAWU that is making decisions on how finances should be allocated and spent? These decisions, policies and directions are not influenced, considered or approved by the GAWU — or the workers, for that matter. We are not even told about them until they are implemented. How then can we be accused?
But, then again, as we have being saying, the Corporation has no concern or respect for its hard-working workers and their organisations.
The Corporation continues to speak glowingly about having partnership, but that’s all it does. It looks as if this talk of partnership is one based on its dictated terms and conditions. Such an approach cannot lend to success. GAWU, as it has said many times before now, is committed to good and positive relations with the sugar company. Such partnership must be founded on the bedrock of equality, mutual respect and understanding.

Yours truly,
Seepaul Narine
General Secretary
GAWU