The Government of Guyana finds itself in the somewhat peculiar position of having inherited from its predecessor what is a decidedly bad situation as far as worker-management relations at the partially state-owned Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) is concerned.
The problem is that while the government is very much a minority shareholder in BCGI, the remaining shares in the company being held by the Russian company Rusal, BCGI’s mining operations take place on Guyana’s territory, its workers are overwhelmingly Guyanese and the bauxite is a Guyanese natural resource. Those factors, unquestionably, imbue the government with both the right and the responsibility to ensure that certain minimum labour standards are upheld.
What the findings of a recent report from the Ministry of Social Protection based on a site visit to BCGI’s Berbice River operations strongly suggest is, first, that the top management of BCGI, all Russian nationals, may well be not particularly mindful of the labour standards that apply (in theory at least) in the local workplace culture. Certainly, what the contents of the report suggest is that in matters of occupational safety and health, labour relations and worker welfare the situation on the ground at BCGI are sub-standard, to say the least. What is equally alarming is that the prevailing conditions have obtained for a number of years, a circumstance which suggests that the previous political administration was far from concerned with holding the feet of the company’s Russian management to the fire as far as standards are concerned, bearing in mind that, among other things, the government is a shareholder in the company.
There is a certain awkwardness to some parts of the report, particularly those that have to deal with trade union recognition. Both the workers and the union itself, the Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union (GB&GWU) have long accused the BCGI management of effectively sabotaging union/worker relations as a means of strangling any kind of worker militancy that might transform itself into insistence of company adherence to labour standards; and certainly, at least on the face of it, there appears to be evidence that the then Ministry of Labour, over time, distanced itself from the problem and refused to have anything to do with enforcing the right of workers to be affiliated to a union of their choice.
If the recent report coming out of the Ministry of Social Protection is anything to go by, the present administration is – at least on paper – taking an entirely different position. Apart from stating unambiguously that the BCGI workers are “passionate over the refusal of the workers to meet and treat with the union,” the report declares that “it is the considered view of the Ministry of Social Protection that the conduct of the company constitutes an infraction of the Trades Union Recognition Act CAP: 98:07.” It goes further, pronouncing on what it says is “the overwhelming right of the workers to be represented by a union of their choice” and actually stating that its records indicate that the GB&GWU “is both the recognized and certified union.” Its ultimate recommendation is that “steps be taken to ensure that the relationship between the company and the union is normalized,” a recommendation that places the ball squarely in the court of current political administration.
Here we have the altogether unusual phenomenon of an arm of government insisting in the right of workers to union representation not just as a general principle but in a particular situation. It is – for want of a better phrase – an anomalous situation the challenges the Government of Guyana to draw a line in the sand as far as investors’ adherence to labour standards is concerned. Some might say it is an awkward situation. Others, including the workers at BCGI, will doubtless see it as a test of the mettle of the political administration.
