The two parties on Thursday inked an agreement formalizing the 5.5% wages and salaries increase for workers which represented a close to negotiations between the union and Guysuco for 2006.

And the union which battled for the salary increases, the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), is hoping that the company has learnt from its most recent experience.

However, Labour Minister Manzoor Nadir is concerned that the strike has hurt everyone.

"The strike is saying that we have to be careful with how management and the unions deal, hurting a company like Guysuco hurts the whole nation," he noted at the signing ceremony.

Nadir added that, "While we feel that the strike may cost more in terms of the losses incurred, we have to look at the longer term effect."

The labour minister also pointed to the need for government, the private sector and his ministry to sit together and work out a social compact. Nadir said the social compact will assure the survivability of all sector workers, and he urged that Guysuco be very rational in dealing with its business.

Meanwhile, GAWU General Secretary Seepaul Narine told Stabroek News he hopes Guysuco always acknowledges the crucial role of workers in the production cycle.

"We can only hope that good sense will prevail and the company will bargain in good faith," Narine said, as he insisted that the union's role is to bargain for good salaries for workers, a role it will continue to perform.

Guysuco's Human Re-source Director Jairam Petam said he had implored the union to minimize strike action.

"We have asked the union to minimize the strike actions as much as possible since we can't deal with any more work stoppages at this critical moment," he noted.

"We'll have to wait and see how early the union will submit their memorandum of claims and then we'll review it and then negotiations will begin," Petam said. But the question is open whether the scenario which played out in this year's negotiations will be avoided when the union makes its proposal for the 2007 increase for its workers.

Negotiations between Guysuco and GAWU commenced since September and up to October had failed to reach agreement.

The union resorted to strike action to press for a 5.75% increase and the inclusion of an escalator clause for 2007 which makes provision in the wages agreement for inflation.

At the signing ceremony, Petam indicated too that strike action was extremely costly to the company given the additional challenges posed by the pending US$37 million loss in revenue through the phased cuts in sugar prices paid by the European Union.