Thousands of Guyanese sugar workers on strike
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) – Thousands of workers on Guyana’s sugar cane estates were on strike for a second day yesterday to press the state-owned industry for pay increases, a union leader said.
Roughly 14,000 sugar workers belonging to Guyana’s most powerful labour union have vacated canefields and factories to demand automatic wage hikes to compensate for cost of living increases when a value-added tax of 16 per cent begins in January, said Komal Chand, general-secretary of the Guyana Agricultural Workers Union.
Guyana’s revenue authority said it will eliminate a 10 per cent hotel levy, a 15 per cent charge on travel tickets, and all consumption taxes on imported items to compensate for the flat VAT tax of 16 per cent for all goods and services starting January 1.
The strike comes amid hard times for the region’s sugar industry. Earlier this year, in response to pressure from the World Trade Organisation, the European Union imposed a 36-per cent cut in its sugar subsidy system, which had artificially kept prices higher than world market levels.
For years, the EU gave former colonies in the Caribbean, Africa and the Pacific preferential access to its markets and paid high prices to encourage development.
Earnings from sugar exports supply a significant portion of the foreign exchange for Guyana, a nation of 767,000 on the north shoulder of South America. The sugar industry is the former British colony’s largest employer.