During the Ministry’s end-of-year press conference held on Wednesday at the Minster’s office, Nadir was questioned about his Ministry’s handling of the ongoing impasse and was asked when the Ministry would intervene more decisively in the issue. In response, the Minister said “we continue to urge the company and the union to meet. And perhaps…we should let this festive season of goodwill take its course and hopefully both parties will exercise more generosity towards each other.”
Nadir also stated that the issue between the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) and the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU) was different from the recent dispute between GAWU and GuySuCo. Nadir said that GuySuCo is the only player in the sugar industry, and that this sector “accounts for over 15 percent of our foreign exchange earnings and it has critical importance to our economy.”
While acknowledging the importance of bauxite to the country, Nadir noted that RUSAL is just one of several companies operating in that sector.
According to him, an important consideration in this industry is that there is a downturn in the global economy and the reduction in the orders for bauxite. He said in tough times management stakeholders, shareholders, and workers needed to come together to ensure the survival of the industries. He said he “is pleased that in spite of RUSAL diverting its vessels to uplift bauxite in other countries that the company has kept its doors open.”
Nadir said too that both parties have to meet and discuss whether the Collective Labour Agreement (CLA) is binding; since the company is saying that the CLA is null and void based on the union breaching aspects of it.
He said that he believed that the company was operating on the basis of legal advice that they would have received. He, however, added that “any party digging in their heels” as it relates to this issue is not going to help anyone.
The Minister’s statements come in spite of recent calls from senior officials from the union such as its Acting General Secretary Leslie Gonsalves for the Labour Ministry to intervene in the matter. Gonsalves, in a letter published yesterday in this newspaper, argued that the company was transgressing the workers’ rights and violating the laws of the land in their dealings with workers. According to him even when the company indicated its acceptance of one of the options presented to it by the company, there were still some legal responsibilities that the company was required to fulfill which it never did.
Meanwhile, Nadir disclosed that on Tuesday the Ministry received 17 letters signed by 120 workers of the RUSAL subsidiary who said that they want to disassociate themselves from the union. He disclosed that this is being taken as “information”.
Asked if the ministry had conducted an investigation to determine whether the signatures were taken fairly and not under duress, Nadir replied in the negative. He, however, opined that since the company has over 400 workers and since most of the workers are back at work, if it was a situation of the letters being sent under duress, the Ministry would have seen more letters and signatures. “If you have 98 percent of the workers on the job and just about 25 percent of them asking for withdrawal I want to infer…I can’t say as gospel, that it may indicate that those signatures were gotten of free will”, the Minister said.
Trade unionist Lincoln Lewis, in a letter published in Wednesday’s edition of the Stabroek News, stated that the company was attempting to have the trade union derecognized via a circuitous route. He said he was in possession of correspondence prepared by the company which clearly shows that it was encouraging the workers to sign a document with the ultimate intention of submitting it to the Trade Union Recognition & Certification Board in order to influence a certain reaction from the Board.
In the letter, he contended that the BCGI was hoping that it would find “justification/acceptance for its illegal action by using the workers as its shield.”
However, Nadir at Wednesday’s press conference again stressed that any effort to derecognize the union would have to be processed solely by the Trade Union Recognition and Certification Board.
