Company bitter over sugar losses

THE 2004 Sugar Cane Crop targetted to produce 60,000 tonnes of sugar, is in trouble. Since Thursday over 400 contracted employees walked off their jobs  at the Usine Ste Madeleine Factory causing the Sugar Manu-facturers Company Limited (SMCL) losses. And if by Tuesday when the cycle of the shift ends, the employees do not resume work, the Company would be in a postion to hire new employees  according to Contractual Obliga-tions, but  by which time the Company would have lost $10.5 million TT.

The SMCL met with the workers yesterday to explain what is now taking place since the crop started on January 12, and according to Prem Nandlal, the CEO, the country would be hard pressed to fulfil its International quota of 55,000 tonnes of sugar (48,000 to Europe and 7,000 to the USA). He said that the Crop was in progress at a reasonable rate grinding 5,500 tonnes of canes per day and so far they had produced some 16,000 tonnes of sugar, 12,000 of which would be  shipped out on Tuesday to Europe, “but now the employees were demanding higher wages having signed an agreement at the start of the crop and this we cannot understand.”