The Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union (GB&GWU) is again calling on President Bharrat Jagdeo to  intervene to reinstate tax-free overtime pay for bauxite workers.

According to the union in a recent news release, if President Jagdeo is serious as he “stressed that his administration is not anti-union”,  then he must first respond to the two letters sent by the union and the company early last year seeking his intervention to reinstate tax-free overtime pay.

According to a statement from the union’s General Secretary (ag.) Leslie Gonsalves, President Jagdeo  must reinstate this to show that bauxite workers are no less deserving of this benefit than sugar workers since this benefit was enjoyed previously by both sectors under the PNC administration.

According to the GB&GWU, doing this would allow for bauxite workers to have a better take home pay and would bring the necessary relief to the company if the president is really concerned about the company’s viability and sustainability in Guyana.

The GB&GWU  is also urging Jagdeo to “act now to stop the violations” which the union says are being  meted out against it as well as workers of the Bauxite Company Guyana Inc. (BCGI).

Additionally, the bauxite union contended that “as Head of Government the President does not need an invitation to intervene to ensure that the Minister of Labour executes his legal responsibility to resolve the dispute which is now three months old and counting.”

He should do this in the interest of the economic well-being of the citizens of his country and ensure the respect of the laws of the country, the release added.

The release also referred to President Jagdeo’s statements made at the Police Officers Conference and reported in Stabroek News on February 13 in which he is said to have cited prevailing economic realities facing RUSAL and the world but failed “to relate this to the plight of bauxite workers eking out a daily living under harsh, unsafe conditions.”

According to the bauxite union, President Jagdeo supported his arguments by mentioning RUSAL’s closure of mines in other countries but from information accessed in the Financial Times (Dec. 31, 2009) RUSAL had said that its net profit in 2009 was  “unlikely to be less than $434m.”

Further, the 57 workers who were wrongfully dismissed by BCGI have to also confront their economic realities and loss of livelihood, the release pointed out.

Meanwhile, Jagdeo ignored  the fact that the BCGI, with the Government of Guyana as a part-owner, is yet to open its financial records to the union and public and so no  determination can be made of BCGI’s economic reality.

In January 2009 when GB&GWU started negotiations for a wage increase, the release noted,  the company had said at the time it was unable to meet the demand for a pay increase given economic indicators on the world market. The union and the company then agreed that they would write the president and request his involvement in the re-instatement of tax-free overtime pay in lieu of a demand for a pay increase from the company.

This was a benefit earned by bauxite workers and enjoyed also by sugar workers, the release noted.

But government has, however, stopped the benefit to bauxite workers even as sugar workers continue to enjoy tax-free overtime and periodic wage increases in a sector plagued by uncertainty and financial overburden, the union argued.

It is Jagdeo’s refusal to respond to the requests by the union and BCGI that caused the union to return to the  employer and primary source of negotiations, with no alternative but to restate its demand for improved wages, the release added.