It is hard to think of a labour relations issue that has generated more controversy and public comment in recent years than the staunch anti-union posture of the management of the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) and the toxic working environment which the employees of the company have had to endure.
The vast majority of the shares in BCGI are owned by the Russian company, RUSAL, a global giant in the aluminium industry. The Government of Guyana (GoG) owns around 20 per cent of the shares in the company and has no say, whatsoever, in the day-to-day management of BCGI.
The management style of the Russian functionaries is characterized by an implacable hostility to a unionized workforce, a posture which it has manifested in the outlawing of the recognized trade union, the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GBGWU) since 2009.
In the years since the establishment of BCGI it appears not to have counted for much to the RUSAL managers that the operations of the company are located on Guyana’s soil and that in the final analysis, the management of the company is accountable to the Government of Guyana and more specifically to the laws of Guyana for the treatment of the workers. This has been evident in the considerable contempt on the part of the BCGI management for the constitutional prerogative of the workers to enjoy affiliation to a trade union of their own as manifested in the company’s refusal over several years to engage the union and its representatives on any issue whatsoever.
Over the years, the decline in the industrial relations climate at BCGI has been accentuated, first, by the wider politically driven erosion of trade union militancy in Guyana which has impacted on the effectiveness of labour’s response to the anti-union posture of the BCGI management and second, by the GoG perplexing refusal to hold the feet of the BCGI’s Russian management to the fire of compliance with the Constitution of the country and with the rights of the workers.
It should be stated that the industrial relations controversy that has attended the working environment at BCGI for almost the entire life of the company has been very much a part of the country’s political agenda. Differences between the then political administration and the current coalition government had seen the leadership of both the APNU and the AFC, in opposition, publicly declare their commitment to bringing an end to the excesses of the RUSAL management should they be elected to office.
The media, on the whole, have been following the BCGI saga over the years, albeit in a climate of unhelpful information blackouts arising out of the attitude of the company’s management to a free flow of information on the one hand and a considerable fear among the workers that their efforts to engage the media would result in reprisals. It has to be said too that the union, which has maintained links with the workers has not been particularly successful in the creation of effective alternative channels of communication between the workers and the media.
Over the years the GBGWU has specifically targeted the outlawing of the union, the systematic sacking of militant workers and the inhospitable on-site conditions – including a hostile safety and health environment – as reasons for protest. The union has, more recently, directed its hostility at the present political administration for its failure to rein in the excesses of the company’s management, particularly in relation to its anti-union posture. The leadership of the union says that, these days, its particular frustration is related to the fact that after more than a year in office the APNU-AFC administration has done nothing to help sanitize the toxic climate at BCGI.
The present political administration has gone only as far as having its Junior Social Protection Minister Keith Scott meet the Russian management of BCGI earlier this year to make public its wish that there be “an amicable resolution” of the differences between the management and the union, which, of course, is a far cry from the public protests shared by APNU and the AFC (in opposition) on the one hand and the union on the other.
Setting aside the fact that there has been no positive change in the industrial relations climate at BCGI under the present political administration, the Russians, arguably emboldened by the lack of any real pressure from the Ministry of Social Protection to adjust their posture, have moved to exile the union altogether by requiring the workers to sign on to an anti-union commitment. This, if the track record of the company is anything to go by, has likely been accompanied by threats against those who refuse to sign. Some workers have taken considerable risk to communicate with this newspaper to make clear their opposition to the wishes of the BCGI management. They make the point, however, that given, on the one hand, the powerlessness of the union and on the other the indifference of the government to the continual hostility of the company’s management, the situation will grow worse. What they say they want is an end to the theatre and the going through the motions manifested in the position of the Ministry of Social Protection.
The union says it wants a firm, uncompromising engagement with the Russian managers on the matter of their obligations under the laws of the country. “That is the government’s obligation,” the union’s General Secretary Lincoln Lewis quipped during an exchange with this newspaper a few days ago.
