Not a great deal has been said about the brief and relatively quiet visit to Guyana late last week by two Russian functionaries of the global aluminium giant RUSAL It has to be assumed, however, that their visit here had to do with an attempt to bring an end to the crisis that had more or less been festering inside the majority RUSAL-owned Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) for years.
The BCGI saga has been repeated, ad nauseum, in this newspaper and elsewhere in the media over a protracted period of time. The Russian management at BCGI had been using the prerogative of their majority ownership of the company and their managerial control to create a decidedly unwholesome working environment, not least a fierce and intractable anti-union posture which has seen the workers’ bargaining agent, the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU) exiled from the work site and therefore cut off entirely from the tri-partite process that is key to industrial relations arrangements.
From all reports there are serious safety and health discrepancies, the Russian management has little respect for Guyanese workers and the social environment is, to say the least, toxic. Every so often the tensions that have arisen from these festering situations tend to boil over.
There is the entirely justifiable feeling that the leaden-footedness mostly of the previous political administration, but also of the present one, has allowed the situation to worsen. Though, if, as would appear to be the case, the visit here by the two RUSAL officials had to do with some kind of action by government, then that has to be acknowledged as a step in the right direction. What is equally positive is the fact that the visiting Russians met with both government officials and GB&GWU General Secretary Lincoln Lewis, the latter engagement providing an indication that the restoration of a trade union to the BCGI workers may be in the cards.
The bigger issue here, of course, is the importance of insisting the investors in Guyana respect the laws of our country and the rights of workers. There is also the question of government’s obligation to ensure that those laws and rights are respected. It took far too long for a decisive move to be made in the direction of addressing this particular problem frontally and one might add the problem may well not have reached the proportions that it finally did had there been a more timely intervention to try to nip it in the bud.
The visit here by the two RUSAL officials is significant in another sense. Bauxite may not be making a hefty contribution to the country’s economy at this time but BCGI is at least making a dent in the country’s unemployment figures so that it is important that a stable on-site work environment be restored at the earliest possible time. Of course it can also be assumed that the visit here by the RUSAL officials is a signal of sorts that the Russian mining giant attaches a measure of importance to the BCGI operations.
This newspaper’s exchange with the bauxite union’s Mr Lewis, suggests that he is cautiously optimistic that the visit by the RUSAL officials could kickstart a healing process. Mr Lewis said that he found meeting with them more comfortable given the fact that they had served as managers at BCGI previously.
The RUSAL/BCGI experience is instructive insofar as it provides an invaluable lesson for all sides in the process. As far as potential investors (and here we assume that there will be quite a few of these in the period ahead) are concerned, it would not at all be a bad idea if the outcome of the recent encounter with the RUSAL officials and what Lewis described to this newspaper as an anticipated process towards remedying the faults serve as an example. There is also a lesson here for government and that has to do with the assertiveness of its posture in terms of making clear to investors the particular importance which the country places on respecting the work force and recognizing their rights.
