Dear Editor,
A New and United Guyana (ANUG) is profoundly disappointed that the Government of Guyana has allowed the dispute between the Bauxite Company of Guyana Incorporated (BCGI) and the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU) to remain unsolved for so many years.
At about the end of 2009, the GB&GW took strike action over a pay dispute with the BCGI and the company sacked 62 workers for insubordination and stated that, notwithstanding the GB&GWU being the recognised trade union under the rules of the Trade Union Recognition Act, it had unilaterally terminated its collective agreement with the union. Since then, the Labour Ministry/Department has been unable or unwilling to mediate the issue.
For example, in February 2012, the Ministry of Labour of the new Donald Ramotar government informed both parties of its intention to send the issue to an arbitration intended to enquire into the dispute over wages, working conditions, the firing of 62 workers and threats to protesting workers by management of the company. The arbitration did not go ahead because the company’s representatives did not attend.
In opposition, APNU+AFC staunchly supported the bauxite workers and in November 2016, asked if it was not time that cease and desist orders be issued against Rusal, the president claimed that measures of adjudication had not yet been exhausted. Now, nearly four years into its government, the same inaction persists and we have reached a point where another 61 workers, out of understandable frustration with the company’s recent offer of an annual increase of 1 per cent and refusal to meet their elected representatives for collective bargaining to properly proceed, took strike action and were sacked.
With elections imminent, the normally lackadaisical government now wants us to believe that it has developed the political will to act! ANUG has its doubts but in the interest of the long-suffering workers, hope it is so. At the end of the day, the government is in office to protect the interests, including the labour rights, of all Guyanese.
Therefore, we call upon the APNU+AFC government to:
1. Ensure that the management of BCGI respect the workers’ decision to have the GB&GWU represent them in any matter of labour.
2. Ensure the reinstatement of all dismissed workers, without victimisation or loss of pay.
3. Ensure that this long-standing dispute is finally resolved in a manner that is fair to all the parties.
Yours faithfully,
Kian Jabour
