Workers of Uitvlugt Estate this morning (July 12, 2022) staged a picketing exercise outside of the estate calling on the GuySuCo to honour holiday-with-pay (HWP) payments for the first crop 2022. HWP is paid to workers in lieu of annual leave and provided at end of each crop to qualified workers. The 2022 first crop at Uitvlugt was truncated arising from issues within the factory, however, workers continued to work and were qualified to receive their entitlements which is in keeping with the Collective Labour Agreement between GAWU and GuySuCo.
The estate contends that the workers are not entitled to the HWP payments. At the same time, other sections of the employees continue to receive their full annual leave entitlements. For the workers, this is disturbing as they all benefitted similarly from the support of the Government. Previously, the workers indicated that the Management informed them that certain computations were being undertaken towards addressing the payments. Without any forewarning, the Corporation changed its position and only offered HWP to workers engaged in planting tasks.
The workers became more upset after the Corporation’s CEO entered the estate compound without even seeking to ascertain the reason/s for the workers picketing. They said they felt disrespected that the senior-most executive who had previously professed his commitment to the workers could not have even asked of their difficulty.
