Members of the union made a presentation to members of the board on Tuesday, where they repeated their call for an end to be brought to the strike impasse.
The union asserted that the BCGI and Labour Minister Manzoor Nadir “are involved in acts inimical to the best interest of bauxite workers, the communities of which they are a part and the peace and stability sector”. The union gave as supporting evidence “the refusal of the BCGI to meet the union to discuss matters pertaining to workers’ welfare in as much as there exists a legal Certificate of Recognition between the parties” as well as “the company’s actions of coercing members of the union to sign a company-prepared petition to request a poll with a view of de-recognising the union under Section 31 of the Trade Union Recognition Act, Chapter 98:07.” The union also cited recent statements by Nadir, as reported in the January 2 edition of this newspaper, where he opined that signatures on the petitions may not have been coerced based on simple mathematics even as he said that the ministry had not conducted an investigation to determine this.
In their presentation, the union representatives said workers had indicated that they were approached by supervisors and representatives to sign the petition because the company said they will be getting a new union to represent them. The union said that a number of employees indicated via a signed document to the union that they were approached by the company’s management to sign the prepared petition. The union said it would send a copy of this document to the Chairman of the Board.
Meanwhile, the GB&GWU accused the company of arbitrarily ceasing to deduct union dues from the wages of the workers. According to the union, there is an agreement between the company and its employees, who are unionized, to make weekly deductions of union dues which are to be remitted to the GB&GWU. The agreement says that the deduction could only be ceased based on an authorized revocation form submitted by the worker to the company.
The union also argued that the BCGI had no authority to terminate the Collective Labour Agreement between itself and the GB&GWU.
According to the union, the actions taken by the company are a clear attack on workers’ rights. The union urged the Trade Union Recognition and Certification Board to treat the matter as one of urgency and to move to ensure that the BCGI and other parties involved respect the rule of law and workers’ rights.
The GB&GWU said that its members were looking for the triumph of “laws and justice over ethnic/racial, political and/or other forms of discrimination.”
