Caribbean Sugar Meetings Held in Guyana

Posted to the IUF website 19-Nov-2003

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Caribbean Sugar Meetings Held in Guyana

From 6 to 10 October, the IUF and affiliated sugar unions in the English-speaking Caribbean met in Georgetown, Guyana, with the occasion of the First Women Sugar Workers Seminar and the Fifth Regional Sugar Meeting. Thirty delegates attended the meetings in representation of eight sugar unions (from a total of nine in the region), which organise an estimated 45,000 workers in the six sugar-producing countries in the E/S Caribbean: Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts, and Trinidad.

The Fifth Regional Sugar Meeting met from 8 to 10 October to review sugar developments in the region with presentations by delegates and representatives of the regional industry. The meeting also evaluated the national sugar activities in 2000-2003, part of the IUF regional program, and decided on strategic goals in the 2004-2006 work program.

Fifteen women delegates from seven unions attended the First Women Sugar Workers Seminar in the Caribbean held on 6 & 7 October. The seminar decided on future work areas highlighting research and action on equality on employment and wages, Health and Safety programs including HIV/AIDS in the work place, and activities to encourage the participation of women in union structures and leadership. The seminar's recommendations were integrated in the 2004-2006 regional sugar program.

The meetings passed resolutions on the sugar situation in Trinidad & Tobago and agreed to produce a regional position paper and on women in sugar as contributions to the IUF global conference. For further information, see the Sugar Worker, October 2003.