Dear Editor
I am deeply concerned that those elected to office on the commitment to protect rights, ensure job creation and reduce poverty have failed to embrace any programme that would realize these and hope the society will believe otherwise. Today references are made to the truth and Prime Minister, Samuel Hinds’ letter “We have sought to treat bauxite and sugar, and their employees and communities, equitably and sensibly” (SN October 19, 2009). In November 1992, the month after the PPP was elected to office, the bauxite union was invited to a meeting at the Office of the Prime Minister. In attendance was Charles Sampson, the union’s President and I. The PM informed us MINPROC, who was contracted earlier in the year to manage Linden bauxite operations, had a Plan to cut bauxite production to 200,000 tonnes per year, which represented a production decline by half. The PM was advised by the union that this plan would result in jobs lost, seen by our international buyers as giving away Guyana’s market share of refractory bauxite, and would make it easier for MINPROC to satisfy its management contract which stipulated payments based on meeting targets. The union saw MINPROC protecting its interest; not the interests of the industry, the workers and Guyana.
After leaving the November 1992 meeting the union went public with the information which the PM publicly denied. In February 1993 MINPROC’s management informed the unions of the plan to cut production and the massive retrenchment of workers. The significant reduction of production and labour coupled with the loss of markets while retaining fixed costs hurt the company. Simply said this Plan bankrupted LINMINE.
This was the exact Plan the PM informed the union of in November 1992 and the union warned of its consequences. I remain convinced MINPROC’s decision was supported by the Government.
The reference by the PM to a US$20 million management buy-out of LINMINE never happened. The US$20 million mentioned in my earlier letters spoke about the plan put forward by LINMINE’s local management to stimulate the operations- after MINPROC departure- which was jettisoned by the Government even as the Government injected US $110 million to stimulate sugar. In 2001 BERMINE proposed a Management/Worker buy-out and submitted a proposal to the Government who refused to meet with the group. In 2007 another proposal was submitted to the Government by a group of Afro-Guyanese businessmen for the leasing of the Everton Bauxite Plant which was rejected. There is a parliamentary Paper on privatization which mandates a workers allocation of 10 percent in ownership but this mandate was disregarded by the government.
The Government touted LEAP as the agency to save Linden and address job creation outside of the bauxite industry. LEAP has not delivered and the Government knows this. Contrary to the PM’s statement I hold no brief for any company. I consider myself a nationalist, protecting rights, including the right to work. I remind the PM that these principles are not wicked neither am I ashamed of them. When LINMINE was targeted for sale to Cambior, the trade union is on record opposing the sale on the principle that the Government was selling out the State’s bauxite reserves. We reminded the government that non-renewable resources are the people’s property and should not be controlled by any private company. Our CARICOM sisters, Suriname and Jamaica have protected their reserves by placing them under state control. Subsequently the union learnt Cambior bought LINMINE for US$1.00.
The tax free overtime wages/salaries bauxite workers fought for and received since 1988 was arbitrarily taken away by the PPP Government even as sugar workers continue to receive it. The Government also broke up the Thrift Plan which provided soft loans to bauxite workers for housing, etc.
The PM attempted a cost analysis on the viability of bauxite vis a vis sugar but what the PM failed to say is that up until October 1992 he was the Research Director in the Bauxite Industry with responsibility to come up with new products. Sam was given a blank cheque yet he was unable to get any new product out of the Research Department. The PM will recall our discussions on the importance of getting new and appropriate product(s) to the market. Every time he offered the assurances that ‘things are under control…soon there will be a new product’ but nothing was achieved.
Contrary to the PM’s statement no subsidy was given to the Bauxite Pension Plan. And the PM knows this. The PM and Winston Brassington of the Privatisation Unit ascribed unto themselves the authority to manage the Pension Plan. At their choosing they summoned the Pension Plan Committee- employees of the industry, who had a reporting relationship and were scared of the men’s political influence- to validate their decisions. At a meeting chaired by the PM that included Brassington the union made a proposal to the Government to save the Pension Plan. This proposal asked for a study to be conducted that would see the establishment of a Trust Fund to pursue investments in the bauxite communities through loans at reduced interest rates. At that time the pension money was invested in a commercial bank yielding a 3 percent return and members of the Plan who borrowed from this bank paid a minimum of 12 percent interest on their loans. This proposal was vehemently rejected by the PM and the Privatisation Unit who thereafter proceeded with their program to break up the plan, worth more than $2.5 billion which would have guaranteed income to workers on retirement. This was the single largest pool of money owned by Africans and a source of pride to the bauxite communities.
The PM writes of the Government subsidizing electricity in Linden.
This is so because at the time of privatization the Government was more interested in putting workers on the breadline and ignored critical issues. Historically water and electricity have been cost elements in negotiating employment benefits and are deemed deferred wages which the Government ignored.
Every single proposal made to the Government to protect income and the right to work was rejected. The workers Pension and Thrift Plans were broken up. The tax-free overtime pay was taken away. There has been massive retrenchment of workers and no proper system put in place for job creation.
Yours faithfully,
Lincoln Lewis