General Secretary of the Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union (GB&GWU)) Lincoln Lewis says the failure of the APNU+AFC administration to clear the way for arbitration with the RUSAL-owned BCGI on protracted labour issues raises doubts about the government’s pre-elections commitments.
Lewis who holds a similar position with the umbrella Guyana Trades Union Congress told Stabroek Business that the failure of the administration to issue documentation that would open the way for compulsory arbitration between the GB&GWU and the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) could raise questions in workers’ minds as to whether the administration is committed to promises given while in opposition to have this matter settled.
“I’m afraid we have had no positive indication from the present administration that it wants to press ahead with the action that is necessary to take this process forward,” Lewis told Stabroek Business.
The issue referred to by Lewis has its origins in the issuance in 2012 of an order for compulsory arbitration between GB&GWU and BCGI over wages and salaries following a protracted period of bad blood between the union and the company.
Lewis explained that after BCGI had moved to the courts on the grounds that the letter authorizing the arbitration had made reference to RUSAL rather than BCGI, the courts had ordered the correct reissuing of the letter but that the then PPP/Civic administration had declined to do so.
“The government may no doubt say that it has been in office for a relatively short time but the truth is that this is not a complicated matter and, moreover, it is one with which the administration has a fair amount of familiarity since it dealt with it when it was in opposition,” Lewis said.
The matter of possible normalization of relations between the majority Russian-owned BCGI and the GB&GWU appeared to have been rekindled late last year following a visit to BCGI’s Berbice river operations though Lewis told Stabroek Business in a telephone interview yesterday that he had as yet seen no “real signs” that the Russian management of the company had changed what he described as “its hostile posture” to a unionized work force.
“The truth of the matter is that it is the Government of Guyana that must now take a firm position on this matter and send a message to BCGI that it must respect the rights of the workers. It can do so by simply issuing the letter that takes the arbitration forward”. In a lengthy statement issued following the reassignment of former Minister in the Ministry of Social Protection Simona Broomes, Lewis had said that Minister of Social Protection Volda Lawrence is yet to issue letters to start the arbitration between the GB&GWU and BCGI “which is not only the lawful course but one she advocated for when she was in opposition. This grievance is more than six years old.”
