The Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union (GB&GWU) yesterday sent letters to Labour Minister Manzoor Nadir and Chairman of the Trade Union Recognition and Certification Board (TUR&CB) Justice Prem Persaud asking them to intervene in the ongoing dispute with the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI), in keeping with their legal responsibilities.
The dispute between the union and the RUSAL subsidiary, BCGI is now in its seventeenth month. Last month, the TU&RCB rejected an application by some workers of the company to have the union derecognized as the official bargaining unit for workers. Following the ruling, Nadir told this newspaper that his intention was to have the two parties meet to iron out their differences. But according to a release from the union, no such engagement has taken place between the two parties as yet.
In a release issued yesterday, the union said it had: “dispatched a letter to the minister and chairman of the [TUR&CB] reminding them of their responsibility under the law and asking that they act in conformity with same.”
The union has written to Nadir on previous occasions.
Regarding Persaud, the union said that it had lodged a complaint with the TUR&CB against BCGI in January last year, but to date the board “has not seen it fit to adjudicate in the matter and report to the union its finding.”
GB&GWU and the BCGI have been at loggerheads since May 2009. The dispute intensified in November 2009, when over 300 workers came together and staged strikes at the Kwakwani and Aroaima sites after the GB&GWU and the BCGI failed to reach a satisfactory agreement on wages. Later, the BCGI began distributing suspension letters to some of the employees, saying they had abandoned their workplace without reason.
A few days later, the majority of the workers returned to work while 57 were dismissed. The company then said it no longer considered that there was a Collective Labour Agreement with the union in place, and that an attempt would be made to have the GB&GWU derecognized.
