General Secretary of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) Lincoln Lewis on Tuesday told the Stabroek Business that he fails to see how the Government of Guyana could continue to neglect to pronounce on “the excesses of the Russian management of the partially state-owned Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI) without leaving itself open to charges of itself being indifferent to issues of workers’ rights.
“The fact of the matter is that the Ministry responsible for monitoring and pronouncing on the industrial relations situation at BCGI appears to have taken a hands-off position,” Lewis said.
The remark came shortly after Lewis and members of the BCGI Branch Executive of the Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union (GB&GWU) met with Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman in what Lewis said was a “constructive engagement” that had served to address and “to some extent, clear up some matters pertaining to the company and the workers. Lewis said that during the meeting one of the issues was the return to the BCGI workers of amounts due to them for overtime work which the company had earlier and inadvertently paid over to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA). Payment to the workers is awaiting the return of the amounts to the company.
