Conditions of service for employees of the majority Russian-owned Bauxite Company of Guyana of Guyana Inc. (BCGI) continue to be poor because of the sustained refusal of the management employed by RUSAL to honour the terms and conditions of the last Collective Labour Agreement signed with the GB&GWU.
This problem, the workers say, is compounded by the indifference of the Department of Labour to what is widely felt to be harsh conditions of service.
Signed in 2008, the last Collective Labour Agreement (CLA) was due to run for three years, though the subsequent refusal of the BCGI management to recognise the union has meant not only that the CLA has long gone ignored by the company but that nothing has been put in its place since the expiration of the old one in 2011. The state of non-recognition of the union by the company’s bosses persists notwithstanding a poll among workers last year at which the Guyana Bauxite & General Workers’ Union (GB&GWU) won the support of more than 90% of the workers.
