The resolve shown by the bauxite workers of the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) and their union, the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU), has to be understood in the context of their historical determination, struggles and achievements for what is right, just and fair under international conventions, laws and collective labour agreements. Bauxite workers and their unions (ie, the GB&GWU, and the Guyana Mines, Metal and General Workers Union) have blazed the trail in advancing, ensuring and protecting the rights and well-being of workers in the industry all over Guyana. This current challenge will not deter them.
In 1969 a strike led against the foreign-owned Reynolds achieved the removal of all discriminatory barriers that existed in the workplace and the Kwakwani community. This was the first community after independence that forced government intervention and set the stage to dismantle the company town/ estate discriminatory practices that existed in bauxite and sugar based on class and race.
In 1976 the unions negotiated a landmark agreement of which the centrepiece was housing for workers. This realized the Bermine Housing Scheme in New Amsterdam, Kwakwani and Ituni Housing Schemes, the beginning of Wisroc and Amelia’a Ward Self-Help Housing Schemes.
The building of the Wismar Hospital was an agreement negotiated by the union and bauxite company. The Linden Concert Hall (LICHAS) came out of a similar agreement. On education the unions negotiated education grants for every employee and time off for education development. There were also medical plans that included overseas treatment, and the 1971 Pension Plan.
In 1979 with the wage freeze, bauxite workers challenged the government’s decision. The CCWU for a short time called out its members in support. For five weeks bauxite workers stood their ground and achieved wages/salary increases for certain categories of workers.
In 1983 in the midst of restrictions on certain foods, bauxite workers initiated and publicly sustained a challenge against the policy. This led to the direct importation of food the workers considered essential for themselves and their communities.
In 1988 bauxite struck and achieved its goal of tax-free overtime. The workers developed and sustained a strategy to needle management to undergo an in-depth income tax analysis. This achievement was extended to the sugar industry. It should be made clear that this struggle was singularly carried in bauxite.
In 1989 with the announcement in the National Budget of the $10 to $1 devaluation, bauxite publicly challenged the policy since they recognized its implication for the standard of living. Workers held their ground until the industry agreed to invest one per cent of the sale of calcine bauxite to subsidize food items. The “10 to 1” seven-week strike is sometimes seen as a strike called by the Federation of Independent Trades Union of Guyana (FITUG). Though the bauxite unions were members of the original FITUG, this federation never called the strike and many of the affiliated unions had their members on the job, while a few came out for a short while.
Over the years workers in Guyana whose jobs were made redundant were compensated under the retrenchment formula. Conscious that there exists a difference between retrenchment and redundancy, in 1990 GB&GWU developed a Redundancy Proposal that was accepted in 1993 by the bauxite company with the agreement to pay a six-weeks wage for each year of service to the maximum of 2 years’ pay. This landmark agreement other unions are striving to match. It is also the first time such terminal benefits were made tax free. When the bauxite union represented workers at OMAI it improved the redundancy formula with the removal of the cap on the ceiling of paid weeks. The new formula included every hour worked in each year of employment, including all premium hours. This is another first. All these benefits were achieved before the 1997 Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Law came into effect. Some of these achievements formed the foundation in shaping the Severance Pay Law.
An examination of the Collective Labour Agreements of the GB&GWU/Omai Gold Mines and the NAACIE/Guyana Power & Light Co would reveal the administrative aspect of the agreement is a replica of the GB&GWU/Omai agreement.
In the spirit of solidarity the bauxite unions (GB&GWU and GMM&GWU) are encouraged their struggles have made it possible for others. It should also be recorded that many of our achievements have been destroyed by this government and some given to others, even as they were taken away from bauxite. Today as conditions deteriorate and the laws ignored to sustain trampling the rights of BGCI workers, it is even more imperative to continue the struggle. The discriminatory conditions of life and work meted out to BCGI workers based on demographic considerations would only entrench their determination to fight on, having recognized that this time is much, much worse than before, and there can be no relenting. Looking back at the injustices in 1969, bauxite workers have come full circle, only this time the independent government is afflicted with a colonial mindset towards them.
Donald Ramotar, Komal Chand, Nanda Gopaul, Gail Teixeira, Moses Nagamootoo, Clement Rohee, GAWU and NAACIE once lend solidarity to bauxite workers and their unions (GB&GWU and GMM&GWU). Today they sit in the corridors of power as participants in the constant and targeted discrimination against a people whose struggles prior to October 1992 they made their shields and benefited from. There is no one in government who will take a principled stand, even when it is clear laws and conventions are violated and principles discarded. Today right and wrong are no longer guided by universal principles, laws, conventions and human decency.
Yours faithfully,
Lincoln Lewis
