For Carlos Angel, 15 years in the bauxite industry including nine years with the majority Russian-owned Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) reached an inglorious end early in January when his Russian bosses dismissed him after they said they had turned up at his work site and found the crew under his supervision not engaged in the pursuit of their duties.
Angel has his own story. When the Russian managers turned up, he said, his crew had already worked for eight hours in fierce heat with not a drop of water to drink. On that particular day the company had not moved drinking water to the work site, as is its responsibility. There had also been an equipment failure occurrence. That was on Christmas day last year.
There had been a “hearing” of sorts, Angel said, during which he had told his story to a local BCGI manager, Leroy Saul and the company’s Labour Relations Consultant, former chief labour officer named Mohammed Akeel. Long before the hearing was even convened, however, Angel was packing his bags. It would usually take nothing short of a miracle for a dismissal decision to be changed. Angel described the hearing as “cowboy trials.”
Angel said his dismissal meant the loss of benefits including monies that would have been due to him arising out of an insurance scheme to which both he and the company contributed.
All of this occurred a matter of a few weeks before the then minister in the Ministry of Social Protection Simona Broomes returned to Georgetown from a site visit to BCGI with reports of evidence of disregard for workers as reflected in some of the working and social conditions on the site. During his interview with Stabroek Business Angel confirmed what the minister had said in her report.
There have been other reports too, of a harsh and unyielding regime of transgression of workers’ rights and of years of government refusal to rein in the Russian bosses despite the fact that the company is partially owned by the Government of Guyana.
Angel is an experienced ‘bauxite man.’ His years in the sector apart he showed us Certificates of Commendation “for hard work and sterling contribution” and some others from CAGI attesting to his participation in courses in Environmental Awareness Best Practices, Supervisory Management and Communication & Report Writing. He comes across as a serious and responsible man.
Fear persists on the work site. If you complain incessantly word inevitably gets to the management and sooner or later you get into trouble. “You have to be careful what you say,” Angel said.
The company, Angel said, has outlawed union membership. What they have done is a transgression of the constitution but the Russian managers don’t seem to mind, he said. “As far as the workers are concerned any union is better than no union,” he added.
The shocking conditions at BCGI’s Berbice site include deplorable toilets, insanitary lunch rooms and working tools that are in poor shape. The men, Angel said, are keen on any kind of remedial intervention. The union is yet to make a move and Angel and another recently dismissed worker Devon Watkins, are waiting on the outcome of the Ministry of Social Protection’s intervention; their families are waiting too.
