The Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU) on Tuesday dispatched a letter to the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) reminding the body of its six-month old complaint, submitted since January 4, requesting a public inquiry into alleged discrimination meted out to bauxite workers based on race and political geography.
The GB&GWU is now calling on the ERC “as a matter of responsibility and right to forthwith put in place modalities for holding a public inquiry.”
The union’s letter was addressed to ERC’s Chief Executive Officer, Yvonne Langevine, a GB&GWU press release said.
The release said further that the complaint against two public officers, Minister of Labour Manzoor Nadir and Chief Labour Officer Yoganand Persaud regarding their continued refusal to execute their legal responsibility consistent with the labour laws and to conciliate in the eight-month old dispute between the GB&GWU and the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI) “is not a matter that can be ignored or be allowed to gather dust on someone’s self.”
The ERC has a constitutional responsibility to “serve all Guyanese and persons living or working in Guyana, including, persons who believe they were discriminated against based on their ethnicity,” the release said.
The GB&GWU referred to “the ERC’s request via Stabroek News, February 8, 2010, that an inquiry was contingent on confirmation that ‘Mr. Carlton Sinclair is authorized to make a complaint on behalf of the Union’ and confirmed that the information was submitted on the same date.”
The union also declared that while it “remains cognizant of the polarized politics, political interference, fear and sensitivity to the interests of the political directorate, it is expected that in a society where the cries for justice and fair play become louder every day the Commission would be motivated into principled, unbiased action.”
According to the GB&GWU, “this does not only require inquiring into ‘safe’ issues, or those submitted by the government, but to also tackle the not so safe, however foreboding it may be. GB&GWU takes note of the immediacy to act on other inquiries submitted after ours.”
The union also contended that too much time had passed and too many had spoken out against the transgressions while “there has been too much suffering with no end in sight to the discrimination meted out to bauxite workers.”
In that light, the ERC’s “constitutional responsibility and the inalienable right of all to be treated equally under the laws cannot be overemphasized.”
Meanwhile the union told the ERC that its refusal to act had given “assent to the refusal of the Minister and Chief Labour Officer to act to resolve the November 2009 dispute which predates a similar refusal to act on the May 2009 dispute that saw workers suspended for protesting to work with unfit vehicles.”
The union said that in addition to some becoming ill and one being permanently disabled, the ministry is aware that the actions of the workers were consistent with Occupational Safety and Health Law Section 56 (1) (a) and (b), and BCGI’s actions violate Section 58 (1) (b).
As recent as June 30 a union member died and others were injured and traumatized in a fatal accident on Manaka Road, Kwakwani, the release stated.
This accident, according to the union, “occurred in a BCGI’s assigned vehicle unsuited for the rugged terrain, on a company road that is badly maintained and of which the union and workers have repeatedly expressed concerns.”
The union is calling for “a root cause analysis into the accident since it cannot be swept under the carpet as a simple road accident given the state of the road, absence of road safety signs, the rugged terrain and the unsuitability of the vehicle that transported the workers on that fatal day.”
The GB&GWU concluded that the “inactions of the ERC and ministry cannot be divorced from the accident and the continued untold social and economic anguish bauxite workers, their families and communities endure daily.”
