Blairmont sugar workers protest for pay raise

Scores of workers of the Blairmont Sugar Estate, Berbice Tuesday morning downed their tools in protest for an increase in their salaries, their Workers’ Union has stated.

The employees, representing a large percent of the field and factory workers, picketed outside the Estate’s Administration Office, calling for pay raises which they claimed were owed to them since 2015.

According to the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), the employees are seeking for the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) “bring an end to its procrastination” in the consideration of their call for a 15% pay increase.

“They feel that the discriminatory treatment meted out to them with the cognizance of the Government for the past years should no longer be perpetuated,” GAWU stated.

The Union said the sugar workers are upset to know that they remain the only group of workers under the State’s umbrella to have not received any improvement in pay since the APNU+AFC Coalition took office in May 2015.

“The GAWU is at a lost why sugar workers, it seems, have been singled out for such unwarranted and unnecessary treatment,” the Union noted in a statement.