“Guyana cannot hope to promote itself as a country that is open to foreign investment on the basis of “a portfolio that turns its back on the exploitation of the workers of the country, the pillaging of its resources and one which appears to have no difficulty with the transgression of the laws of the country,” General Secretary of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) Lincoln Lewis has said.
Lewis’ remarks, during an interview with Stabroek Business earlier this week, arose out of what he said was the reluctance of the political administration to act decisively to rein in “the excesses” of the management of the bauxite-mining company Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI), control of which is in the hands of the Russian conglomerate RUSAL while the Government of Guyana has a minority shareholding interest.
And in a related comment on the operations of BCGI, Lewis said the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU) wants the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) to conduct “a verifiable audit” of its bauxite exports “to ensure that the royalties paid to the people of Guyana by the company are consistent with the volumes and value of the bauxite that it exports.”
The veteran trade unionist’s primary concern, however, was what he said was his personal disappointment with the posture “up until now” of the APNU+AFC administration “given the commitment that it had made to correcting the wrongs at BCGI when it was in opposition.
“Part of the focus of this administration’s promotion of Guyana as a country that welcomes overseas investors is that there must be respect for the labour laws of the country including those that pertain to workers’ rights. In that context, BCGI is the worst possible advertisement for Guyana as an investor-friendly country,” he added.
Lewis said that while the APNU+AFC coalition had spoken out openly in the National Assembly and elsewhere against what he said was “a tyrannical industrial relations regime” at the company, it has done little to curb the excesses of the company since its accession to office. “The Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union [of which Lewis is General Secretary] and the Guyana Trades Union Congress are disappointed. This is not what we had anticipated after the workers had endured so many years of tyranny at BCGI under the previous administration.”
And according to Lewis, the current political administration runs the risk of coming under the scrutiny of the International Labour Organization (ILO) on account of its indifference to the delinquencies of the majority-owned Russian company and its failure to act to curb its excesses. “What we have is a situation in which, the dictates of the constitution regarding freedom of association notwithstanding, BCGI continues to openly refuse to engage the legitimate and recognized trade union representing its workers and successive administrations continue to do nothing about it. The situation started under the previous political administration and it appears as though the current administration finds itself in something of a double standard,” Lewis told Stabroek Business.
According to Lewis, engagement between the Government of Guyana and the Russian management of BCGI “appeared to be headed in the right direction” after what he described as “a period of hell under the previous administration.” Last year, an re-engagement between government and BCGI on matters relating to workers’ welfare including what Lewis described as “serious humanitarian issues” appeared close after Simona Broomes, then Minister in the Ministry of Social Protection, visited the company’s Berbice River operations and provided a less than flattering report on aspects of its operations particularly what she had told Stabroek Business was its sub-standard safety and health regime.
Lewis told Stabroek Business that he had met Broomes following her visit to BCGI and even after her reassignment as Minister in the Ministry of Natural Resources. “The truth is that our conversations with the minister created a glimmer of optimism but thereafter it came to our attention the Russians were still adamantly refusing to engage the union,” he said.
And according to the GTUC General Secretary, conditions at BCGI and the administration’s apparent reluctance to “step in decisively” has had the effect of further demoralizing the work force. “We need to understand that after several years of enduring a climate of fear and intimidation at the hands of the company’s management the workers had actually begun to see light at the end of the tunnel. These days, the climate of uncertainty is returning.”
Lewis said, meanwhile, that conditions at BCGI’s operations and the fear that it had created among the company’s workers was “nothing short of a regime of intimidation that sought to compel them to choose between their freedoms under the country’s constitution and their jobs and by extension, their families’ welfare. That is not acceptable and we believe that the government has to act, sooner rather than later, to remove what is in effect a shameful and unacceptable condition.”
