Promise kept: 7% salary increase for sugar workers before year-end – Jagdeo

Vice-President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo on Monday announced that sugar workers will benefit from a seven per cent salary increase.

This money will be paid to the workers before the end of the year.

“As you would recall, when I met with the sugar workers in April…I indicated that apart from the $250,000 grant… for those workers who were terminated, that there would be a salary increase for the sugar workers this year…

“I promised at that time whatever the public servants got, the sugar workers would also get,” Jagdeo told the state media on Monday.

Only recently, thousands of sugar workers who lost their jobs under the previous coalition government started to receive a $250,000 grant from the government while public servants also benefited from a seven percent retroactive salary increase.

The Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) and the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) were informed of the government’s decision on Monday by Jagdeo during a meeting.

The Vice President recalled that under the former APNU+AFC government, about 7,000 sugar workers lost their jobs and in the five years under the then government, there were no wages and salary increase for sugar workers.

And so, Jagdeo noted that while the public servants and other categories of workers benefited from salary increases, the sugar workers did not.

Meanwhile, the Vice-President noted that in the New Year, the government will be working with GuySuCo to strengthen management, noting that several proposals are on the table in this regard.