Dear Editor,
The Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU) takes serious objection to Mohamed Akeel’s letter ‘BCGI took positive action to assist Kwakwani trail crash victims, it was not an industrial accident’ (SN July 31). Bauxite workers and members of this union view Mr Akeel’s comments as dishonest, disrespectful of their rights and in clear disregard of their lives and those of their families. Mr Akeel is advised that workers go to work to earn a living and provide for themselves and families, and the employer is legally bound to provide a safe and healthy environment for them to work in. He therefore cannot be allowed to think it is acceptable to treat bauxite workers as deserving and obliging mendicants when in the first instance the company had abrogated its legal responsibility to the workers.
The accident of June 30 involving bauxite workers who were travelling in the vehicle provided by the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) was an industrial accident. Workers were on an assigned company bus that transported them to and from work and on that fatal day they were on the bus going to work. All the characteristics of an industrial accident are present. Clearly this was an “accident that occurred out of and in the course of employment” as per the Occupational Safety and Health Act (1997) Section 68, Part VII. Mr Akeel knows this too because he was the country’s Chief Labour Officer, and Occupational Safety and Health Officer for years. The fact that he is now on the payroll of BCGI to do the bidding of his employer does not deny the fact of the presence of the law and his knowledge that the accident is industrial.
Accidents never happen, they occur; as such there is/are reason(s) why Remington ‘Tuts’ Wade died and so many workers are injured.
For Mr Akeel to tell workers that cars drive on the road so that makes it right for a minibus to be packed with fifteen workers when BCGI has neglected its responsibility to provide safe transportation for the workers, is in fact saying to workers that their lives and safety are not important. The road between Kwakwani and Aroaima is similar to the road between Linden to Omai landing and McKenzie to East Montgomery. They are off-highway roads and as such Demba, Guybau, Reynolds, Guymine and Omai used large buses appropriate for the terrain and the safety of the workers.
In other countries there would have been an uproar over this mine accident and the government would have moved to investigate it, and where needed pass the requisite laws and have the company properly compensate workers. If such an accident had happened in the sugar industry the government and Mr Akeel would not have treated the sugar workers so disrespectfully nor been flippant about their rights, lives and well-being.
Mr Akeel’s statement that BCGI wanted to form an Occupational Safety & Health Committee and the union is refusing to do so is grossly inaccurate. Both Mr Akeel and the company have been told of the union’s commitment to be part of such a committee providing that its composition, mandate and operation are consistent with the respective laws. It is Mr Akeel and the company’s refusal to adhere to the procedures set out in the law that is responsible for the absence of the committee.
Yours faithfully,
Carlton Sinclair
President Aroaima/Kwakwani Branch
Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union
