Albion workers strike over weekly target
Stabroek News
February 10, 2004
Albion Sugar Estate has been shut down for ten days with factory and field workers protesting a revised weekly production target.
Guysuco stands to lose 2,200 tonnes of sugar this week if the strike continues, warns Guysuco's Industrial Relations Director, Jairam Petam.
But the workers say they stand to lose their weekly production incentive if the revised target of 2175 metric tonnes, up from the previous 2165 metric tonnes, remains. The corporation took off eight tonnes of the revised target, but the workers continue to demand that all ten be removed.
General Secretary of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers' Union (GAWU) Seepaul Narine confirmed that the workers were still on strike.
Petam said an increase in the target was usually influenced by three factors: cane yields, performance of the factory and the quality of cane produced. He said the increase could be based solely on one of these factors or sometimes all three. He said in the case of Albion all three factors were favourable, adding that cane-yield improved significantly last year.
Petam was adamant that the revised target is achievable noting that on a normal grinding week Albion would surpass that target. He said if you remove the first and the final week of the last crop, the factory achieved the revised target 11 times.
In terms of negotiations, Petam said on February 1 Guysuco and the union met and agreed to reduce the revised target by five tonnes. He says the sides agreed that the workers would return to work, but this was not done and the strike continued last week. He said last week they twice reduced the target.
Petam argued that for last year the estate's weekly target average for the first crop was 2419 metric tonnes, while for the second crop it was 2232 metric tonnes.
"So you can see even with these figures and notwithstanding that we are prepared to reduce the target by eight tonnes the workers and their union are still demanding that we don't increase the target."