The Ministry of Social Protection’s Department of Labour has excluded the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU), which has been representing workers at Barama Company Ltd (BCL) since February, stating that it recognizes the Guyana Labour Union (GLU) as the bargaining body.
A meeting between BCL, the Department of Labour and the bargaining union is set for today at 10 am and several representatives from the company questioned why the GLU was invited to the meeting and not the GB&GWU, which was the last recognized union representing the workers.
When BCL first began operating in Guyana, the GLU was its workers’ representative. However, there was an incident in 2010 where a boiler exploded and the BCL factory was shut down for over six months. As a result, approximately 270 workers were retrenched. When the factory reopened, a significant number of workers who came on board were new and the union went silent.
A source from the company explained that since then it had written to the Trade Union Recognition and Certification Board asking for an opinion on the way forward. However, the company never received a response and the workers went unrepresented for more than five years.
According to the source, it wasn’t until January 2016, that the GB&GWU applied to represent more than 150 workers. “What the company had indicated is that we had no problem embracing any union but we were in the middle of the renewal and we would’ve prefer to wait until that was completed. The board did not want to engage any union with any long-term agreements and they were made to understand that we were restructuring and so on,” the source explained, while stating that the GB&GWU took note but indicated that it still wanted to represent the workers.
In February 2016, the recognition body recognized the union and so indicated to the company. Since then, the GB&GWU has been representing the workers and has been in talks with the company on all issues.
Despite this, however, the invitation that was sent to the company, which was seen by Stabroek News, was carbon copied to the GLU, which was stated in the letter as being the last recognized union.
When Stabroek News contacted General Secretary of the GB&GWU Lincoln Lewis he said he was unaware of such a meeting and was concerned that his union, which is the last known recognized body representing the workers, had not been invited.
In addition, the letter also stated that the ministry was only made aware of the company’s decision to adjust its operations through the media, which the source said was false.
The source explained that before the initial retrenchment of workers started in July, the company had indicated its position and subsequent actions to the ministry in June. The ministry was informed again in September about the number of workers who would have been laid off owing to the slowdown of the market. “By law, the company is required to inform the ministry one month prior to any laying off and that is what was done,” the source explained.
Barama set up here in 1991 in a controversial deal which gave South Korean and Malaysian investors control of a lowland, mixed tropical forest concession of approximately 1.6 million hectares in the Northwest region of Guyana. It had a chequered history with the authorities, facing fines and questions about limited value added activities in recent years. At its height, it employed over 1,000 workers but numbers have fallen significantly.
The company had reported last month that 180 workers had been retrenched over a three-month period and its General Manager Mohindra Chand had said Barama was forced to let the workers go because of the market slowdown and the fact that government was not moving quickly towards renewing the company’s contract.
The Ministry of Natural Resources had said that in 2015, following a request from Barama for the continuation of its contract, Cabinet gave its ‘no objection,’ but recommended the convening of a Task Force to examine the request. This Task Force was seen as necessary given the “rapacious activities” of some foreign companies operating in the forests of Guyana, and “some not so positive observations that had been expressed about Barama in particular,” the ministry had said in a statement.
The statement said the Task Force met on several occasions and visited Barama’s operations at Buck Hall, Essequibo, following which the legal consultant began reviewing the existing contract, forest concessions, and tax incentives previously granted to the company, while other members evaluated workers’ rights, value-added operations and environmental management practices, among other things.
Subsequently, the government submitted a draft agreement to the company, which then announced last week that it was not going to seek a renewal of its contract with regard to its forest concession, but would continue with other activities it was currently involved in.
Barama’s announcement came after weeks of mixed signals about whether its contract would be extended.
