Seven years after his dismissal from the RUSAL-run Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI), Lennox Smith says he has been unable to find a permanent job.
Smith was among a batch of 57 bauxite workers who were dismissed in 2009 after engaging in industrial action for increased wages and improved working conditions.
Since his dismissal several years ago, he says he, like other workers, continues to suffer for trying to stand up for their rights. He stated that it appears that other companies have blacklisted the dismissed workers as a result of their actions at RUSAL.
“You go to the next bauxite company to search a job and they look at you in your face and tell you, ‘oh you were one of them who strike at RUSAL, we can’t hire you,’” Smith lamented during a Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) press conference last Friday.
“If you write an application, you’re fearful to write that you worked at RUSAL; you will have to lie or you will not be hired,” he added.
Smith explained that in 2009 he was gainfully employed at Aroaima, where he had been a shop steward for nine years before Rusal took over. He noted that during his tenure there, there had never been more than one strike a year, however, after the change in management, the occurrence of industrial protests significantly increased.
“If we are an independent nation, how come we can’t stand up for our own rights in our own country? We elected a new government hoping and praying that they look out for the rights of Guyanese,” Smith said, while voicing his dissatisfaction with the manner in which the current administration has been addressing the issue.
Smith and others who had been dismissed are calling for the engagement of the coalition government in bringing the ongoing impasse between the BCGI and the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers’ Union (GBGWU) to an end as had been promised on the campaign trail last year.
“In 2010, I marched with a placard around town from RUSAL head office to the Office of the Prime Minister and the office of the Ministry of Labour. I had many of the now ministers with placards alongside me and behind me,” he said.
“It is heart aching to see that up to today none of the ministers have given us the time of day where this matter is concerned. None of the ministers have come out to the media. I don’t care what office they hold. You could be the Attorney General, you are still a minister and you were put there to serve us. We trust you to run the country and we ask you run it correctly,” he added.
Similar sentiments were expressed by Winston Blair, one of the five men who was terminated by the company the following year after making claims that RUSAL was preparing meals for workers using expired and rat-infested stocks.
Blair explained after the claims were made, he was one of the five persons who took part in gathering evidence to prove that workers were indeed being fed meals that were reportedly prepared using rat-infested and expired food materials. He related that with the assistance a Russian nurse attached to the company, photos and videos were taken as proof to be shown to management. These, he said, were shown to management and a decision was made to close down the kitchen and have a selected few be involved in preparing the meals.
However, a few days after this practice was adopted, another meeting was held where Blair claims that although management had accepted its wrongdoing, the workers were asked to “forgive the contractor.” They objected and the following Friday the men were reportedly terminated, he added.
Complicity
GTUC General Secretary Lincoln Lewis, who was also present at the press conference, describ-ed RUSAL’s actions as being a “clear violation of the rights of workers” that has garnered some degree of support by government over a period.
However, he said this year marks seven years since the start of the ongoing impasse, although the constitution gives the protection of the rights of persons “to the right of free association, collective bargaining, even the right to strike.”
“No government, no business, foreign or domestic, living in Guyana or doing business in Guyana, should enjoy the right to disrespect the laws of this land,” he added.
He further stated that it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that Guyana’s constitution is adhered to and in its failure to ensure that, it then loses its moral authority to talk about political
independence, much less to speak to celebrate it.
“The government has to do something to ensure that this 50th anniversary year is marked by respect for the constitution, respect for the laws in totality,” Lewis noted.
Lewis charged that the BCGI is only allowed to disrespect Guyanese and Guyana’s laws as a result of the complicity of government or government officials. “You have had a case where 57 workers were dismissed in 2009 and from the time those persons were dismissed to now they (RUSAL) have refused to engage or talk to the union or engage the Ministry of Labour,” he pointed out.
Meanwhile, Lewis argued that although RUSAL has and continues to provide jobs for locals, such jobs cannot be used as the only pacifying factor if justice is not being meted out. He said, “You can give a man all the food but if that man does not have his rights respected he is not a man any longer. At RUSAL, our rights are being taken away and no food or no money can compensate for that.”
Chief Labour Officer at the Ministry of Labour Charles Ogle told Stabroek News that on Thursday both representatives of RUSAL, GTUC and the GBGWU were invited to a meeting to discuss another pressing issue affecting several bauxite workers.
However, the meeting has since been delayed until next Wednesday in light of RUSAL’s refusal to partake in any discussion in the presence of Lewis and president of the GBGWU Charles Sampson, who were representing workers at the meeting. The meeting was said to have been called to find a solution to an ongoing issue where workers have complained about having to work in excavators with broken air-conditioned units and the indefinite suspension of 48 other workers who has been issued warning letters because they had been on sick leave for some time.
