…picket GAWU headquartersDiamond sugar workers downed tools and raised placards yesterday morning in protest of a decision that sees them being denied severance pay when their positions are terminated at the end of this – Diamond’s last sugar crop.Almost 100 workers converged out front of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) main office chanting “No severance,Benoit Cheyrou Toronto Shirts, no vote! No severance, no vote!” and waving placards.Despite the inclement weather the workers continued to raise their voices in unison as they called for a solution to their plight.Speaking to the media was Mr. Lucien Pierre, who on a normal day, harvests sugar cane but today was representing his fellow workers joined in protest. The workers were, according to Pierre,Loic Remy Jersey, protesting the speed with which a court case that GAWU has filed against GUYSUCO is proceeding.Earlier this year,Mesut Ozil Jersey, GAWU filed a motion against GUYSUCO seeking severance pay for the hundreds of field workers of the Diamond Sugar Estate which will officially end all planting activities after this last harvest is completed.Pierre said that the union, GAWU, is moving too slowly on the matter.“We are displeased with the attitude of the General Secretary towards the matter” he said. Pierre claimed that he had approached the General Secretary of GAWU, Seepaul Narine, more than three weeks ago requesting a meeting between workers and executives where they would be able to discuss the next step in the matter.He claimed that their silence on the matter is making the workers feel as if the union does not have their best interests at heart.GAWU President,Henrikh Mkhitaryan Manchester United Jersey, Komal Chand told Kaieteur News yesterday that he understands exactly how the workers feel but that the matter is in the hands of the courts. “I would be out there picketing with them if they weren’t picketing my office!”He claimed that Chief Justice Ian Chang needs to assign a judge to the matter so that the hearings can begin.The workers,Sergio Busquets Barcelona Jersey, through Pierre also called on Chief Justice Chang, to treat the matter as urgent and grant it some much needed attention since he was after all dealing with their lives.Pierre claimed that GUYSUCO closed both the factory and the workshop and granted all of those workers severance pay. Yet according to statements made by GUYSUCO management the field workers will be transferred to the La Bonne Intention (LBI) Estate, where they can continue to work for the corporation – with no severance pay.Chand however claimed that the key premise to the writ filed by the union on the workers behalf was in accordance with certain sections of the Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Act that deals with the conditions under which the workers have to perform their duties if they are offered continued employment elsewhere in the organization.He claimed that the longer distance that the workers have to travel was one of the factors that come into play.That point was better explained by Pierre who said that if he leaves home at 04:45 hrs every morning to go all the way to LBI,Michael Carrick Jersey, by the time he was in the field it would be closer to 06:45 hours whereas the same time at the Diamond Estate would see him with almost two and a half tons of cane on the ground.He argued that the longer distance would affect his earning ability so it was not as simple as just transferring to another estate.Pierre argued that GUYSUCO’s simple solution was no solution at all, and the workers who have been depending on the Union are beginning to get worried. “We are willing”, he said, “to do whatever it takes – within the law of course, because we are not above the law – to? see that the workers get their severance pay.”He said that the workers were willing to picket at the Ministry of Agriculture and the GUYSUCO Head Office if that was what it took to get the problem solved since all of the workers protesting and even those who weren’t there wanted their severance pay.Pierre added, “The issue doesn’t just concern the three hundred plus workers at Diamond, it concerns the families of the workers as well.”He noted that a large portion of the sitting Government’s support base is made up of sugar workers and if the government does not do all in their power to take care of the sugar workers then they would simply have to give t