Dear Editor,
For many the rescue of 33 Chilean miners was nothing short of a miracle. Attention is paid to the fundamental (s) that made it possible and where we, as a people, can be the better from these experiences we should embrace them. In a country with a population of 17 million, the invested human and financial resources to ensure the survival, upkeep and rescue of the 33 miners are testimony to the premium placed on the right to life and the other attendant rights flowing therefrom.
Mining is dangerous work. People work for long hours under conditions always deserving of improvement. When a sister developing country can carry out an operation of such magnitude and the President awaited the rescue of every miner to welcome him, it says too that a government can be mindful of its role as the citizens’ servant and protector of their rights.
Chile and Guyana are in the mining business, the former being considered underground mining and the latter open cast mining, with both sharing similar hazardous working conditions and experiences.
In Guyana the bauxite workers have been involved in industrial accidents and as recently as June there was the death of Remington ‘Tuts’ Wade and the serious injury of others. Persons are yet to learn if an investigation, consistent with the law, was conducted into this incident, since the government holds the false notion that they are the masters of the people and not their servants and therefore are not answerable to them. We, as citizens, have a duty to let the government know such behaviours are unacceptable and must end.
In May 2009, 67 bauxite workers, employed at the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI), were disciplined for protesting against unsafe working conditions in the mines, which also resulted in illness and permanent disability. The act of disciplining workers protesting unsafe conditions contravenes the Occupational Health and Safety Act, Sections 56(1) and 58(1). Again, in November 2009, another 57 miners were wrongly fired for taking industrial action to realize improved working conditions and increased wages. All 124 miners still await the ministry’s intervention, consistent with its legal responsibility, while the 57 fired in November are still off the job. The 57 would have been earning an average $96,000 per month, which equals $ 5.4 million per month, times the 11 months which totals approximately $ 60.1 million.
The above exposes the transgression of fundamental rights and the attendant economic injustice inflicted on the workers, the result of the ministry’s inaction. The government is fully aware of this economic deprivation that is preventing workers from ensuring their sustenance and independence. Further, the government’s failure to resolve the disputes has compromised the workers’ ability to provide for their children’s education, healthcare and other forms of parental support. Proud and skilled workers are being forced to look into the sad eyes of their children and say that they cannot afford, knowing full well that their inability to provide is not of their doing but that of a discriminatory and uncaring government which continues to execute policies trampling on their rights and destroying the African economy. Be it known that every day the government refuses to intervene and resolve the BCGI impasse, that $60.1 million climbs higher, adding to the adverse effects already implemented on the bauxite communities.
The Chilean experience will be studied across the world by governments, miners and mining unions, and mining will never be the same again. The progressive ones will make use of the experience and best practices and incorporate them in their management to make mining safer and improve the lives and well-being of mine workers. As Guyanese, if the Chilean experience has taught us anything, it is how much our society has moved backward over the years, while other societies are modernizing by embracing and protecting the rights of their citizens.
As a people we can no longer sit on the sidelines and allow this degeneracy to engulf us; we have to stand up and fight. This abusive government has to be held accountable and we will have to raise our voices and demand an end to the abuses and the beginning of respect for our rights, including improved workplace safety, justice for every worker –union or non-unionized – ratification of ILO Safety and Health in Mines Convention No. 176, and the development of regulations to give effect to the Occupational Health and Safety Act promulgated since 1997. Let’s remember, what is worth having is worth struggling for.
Yours faithfully,
Lincoln Lewis
