-Tuesday meeting scrapped after company fails to show up
Talks between the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU), the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BGI) and the Chief Labour Officer, Yoganand Persaud are now at a standstill after the company’s management failed to show up for the last scheduled negotiating meeting.
The company and the union were scheduled to meet on Tuesday with the Chief Labour Officer, but this meeting never materialized. Persaud told this newspaper that the company’s management failed to show up and he said repeated efforts to contact the company on Tuesday and yesterday proved futile. The Chief Labour Officer said that these actions forced him to dispatch a letter to the company’s management yesterday.
According to Persaud, he was told that work had resumed at the company but he told this newspaper he had no way of confirming this. One of the main reasons why Persaud wants to meet with both parties is to discuss the company’s declared intention to move to have the union derecognized, he said. To date, the company has not formally moved to have the union derecognized.
Meanwhile, when contacted yesterday Acting General Secretary of the GB&GWU Leslie Gonsalves said that while quite a few workers have returned to the Aroaima plant, not much is being accomplished at the site.
Speaking about the failure of the company to show up for negotiating meetings, Gonsalves said he believes that there are some “delay tactics” being employed. According to him, the apparent lack of assertiveness on the part of the Chief Labour Officer may lead persons to ask certain questions.
Nevertheless Gonsalves emphasized that the union remained committed to having the current dispute settled. He said that the striking workers would not resume work in an environment of such uncertainty and he stated that the company needed to recognize this.
Earlier this month General Manager of the Company Sergey Kostyuk, in a letter to the President of the bauxite union, Charles Sampson indicated the company’s termination of the Collective Labour Agreement and disclosed its intention to move to have the union “derecognized”. This angered the already striking workers who intensified their protests. Last week some of these workers travelled to Georgetown to stage picketing exercises in front of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Labour.
However, some of workers have resumed working with the Russian owned company. Stabroek News understands that those employees who have resumed work would have had to sign a document indicating their dissatisfaction with the union.
If the company is to move to have the union derecognized, the support of employees would be necessary.
