As the Labour Department seeks to end a long-running wage calculation dispute between management and workers of Bosai Minerals Guyana, the Chinese company yesterday refused to submit the records of an aggrieved employee and indicated that it would rather go to arbitration to resolve the issue.
“Bosai refused to submit their records and said they want it to go to arbitration,” a Social Protection Ministry official told Stabroek News yesterday.
The records requested pertained to wages received by Lennox Stephens. A visibly-upset Stephens told Stabroek News that he was disappointed that the company refuses to pay him his outstanding wages and as a result he took the matter to the ministry. “They have been paying me short money since 2008 and I kept complaining, complaining. I went to this body, that body and the people don’t want to pay. So, I took the matter to the Ministry of Labour but under the then government they dragged their foot,” he said.
“I kept at it and went back. [Junior Social Protection] Minister [Simona] Broomes came when government change and explained to them they have to pay the workers. You know only then they give some people their money and even then it was wrong but I still haven’t gotten mine,” he added.
Stephens said his case was called at the Labour Department yesterday and although the company was told to walk with his files and records, its representatives did not and instead requested that the matter be taken to arbitration.
The ministry official confirmed that Bosai requested arbitration and said it has one week to submit that request to the ministry.
The official noted that three other cases involving Bosai are also slated to go to arbitration.
Stephens said he has confidence that his money will be given to him but he would have wanted it for the Christmas holidays.
Another ex-employee of Bosai, Alfred Carrington, said he too was owed by the company. He said the company has erroneously calculated his wages and he brought his pay slips to prove his case. He explained that eight-hour work shifts are the normal daily hours and every hour after is counted as overtime. If employees work for more than 12 hours, two bonus hours are added and those are also counted as overtime.
However he said when he was paid in July this year, after resigning since the 31st December last year, he was only paid for 8 hours when he would worked 12 hour days for almost every day he was employed at the company.
He is also asking the ministry to look into his matter and says if that doesn’t work he will hire an attorney and file civil proceedings against Bosai.
At a recent meeting with Bosai’s top management officials and union officials from the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE), Broomes emphasised her intention of resolving the wages issue once and for all based on the law.
NAACIE President Kenneth Joseph, who represented the workers at the meeting, said the formula being used by the company to calculate the workers’ wages and salaries, which will affect their benefits, is not in accordance with the labour laws, while the company strongly denied the claim.
Labour officials from the Ministry’s Labour Department, including Deputy Chief Labour Officer Nadia Samuels and consultant Francis Carryl, also stated that the formula being used by the company is not in accordance with the labour laws.
However, the company’s Senior Personnel Officer Trudel Marks, who along with the company’s General Manager Robert Chang and its Company Secretary Norman McLean was present at the meeting, maintained that the company’s calculation is above board and that it had been “inherited” from the Omai gold company.
Samuels said the ministry would have gone as far as to develop a guideline for the company to follow in its calculations of the wages and salaries but it was rejected.
Marks had said that while the ministry’s calculation is not wrong, it is not applicable to the company’s circumstances.
