In order to ascertain whether the GB&GWU or the GLU represents the workers from Barama Company Limited (BCL), a meeting is set for tomorrow with the company and the Ministry of Social Protection.
After the company had announced that it would be laying off more workers, in addition to the 180 who were previously retrenched, the Ministry of Social Protection’s Department of Labour, had invited the company along with the Guyana Labour Union (GLU) to a meeting. However, the company had earlier reported to Stabroek News that the GLU had not represented the workers since 2010 and the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU) had taken over representation since the beginning of the year.
However, the Ministry is contending that the GLU was the last recognized union for the workers which the Head of the GLU, Carvil Duncan says was true and that the confusion was caused because of an error by the Ministry.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, Duncan said that the mishap has been caused because someone in the Ministry “erred and erred badly”.
“The GLU had an agreement and since the 2010 incident persons were distributed to different areas and the operations came to a close and they got all their benefits. Surprisingly, Barama did not terminate the agreement,” he said, explaining that there was a clause in the agreement that states even though the contract runs for two years if it is not amended or terminated then it will continue to be enforced.
“We went dormant because it took Barama nearly two years to get back (into operation) and when they did they needed time to start up back and recover. We were being a generous trade union and we have given them the time.
However, it appears as though somebody said to them that the company [Barama] doesn’t have a union and the Ministry of Labour (Social Protection) confirmed it without doing the research,” he said.
Stabroek News had reported in September that the company had over a three-year period retrenched some 180 workers.
The company had cited a slowdown in the timber market as being the major reason for the laying off of workers. However, a source had indicated that the slow pace with which the government was moving to renew the contract had an equal impact on the workers losing their jobs.
When asked why it was the GB&GWU and not the GLU that raised their concerns with the initial retrenching of the workers, Duncan said that it [retrenching] was done quietly.
“It wasn’t public knowledge and so some of the workers took their money and went away but now it’s different. What we want to ensure is that the workers get whatever benefits the agreement has and nothing less,” he said.
Duncan reiterated that the GLU is adamant that it is representing the workers.
Since the company’s advent here, the workers had been represented by the GLU. However, the incident that occurred at the company in 2010 where the boiler exploded led to the factory being shut down for over six months and as a result approximately 270 workers were retrenched.
When the factory was reopened, a significant amount of workers that came on board were new and the GLU went silent.
A source from the company had explained that since then they had written the Trade Union Recogni-tion and Certification Board (TUR&CB) asking it for an opinion on the way forward. However, the company never received a response and so the workers went unrepresented for more than five years.
According to the source, it wasn’t until January 2016, that the GB&GWU applied to represent more than 150 Barama workers.
In February 2016, the TUR&CB recognised the union and indicated this to the company. Since then the GB&GWU has been representing the workers and has been in talks with the company over all issues.
However, the recent invitation that was sent to the company by the Department of Labour, which was seen by Stabroek News, was carbon copied to the GLU, which was stated in the letter as being the last recognized union.
From all indications, the source from the company explained that both unions are recognized representatives of the workers since the GLU was never officially derecognized.
The Ministry of Natural Resources had said that in 2015, at the request of Barama for a continuation of its contract, Cabinet gave its ‘no objection’ to the continuation of the arrangement but recommended the convening of a Task Force to examine the request.
This Task Force was seen as necessary given the “rapacious activities” of some foreign companies operating in the forests of Guyana, and “some not so positive observations that had been expressed about Barama in particular,” the ministry had said in a statement.
The statement said that the Task Force met on several occasions and visited Barama’s operations at Buck Hall, Essequibo, following which the legal consultant began reviewing the existing contract, forest concessions, and tax incentives previously granted to the company, while other members evaluated workers’ rights, value-added operations and environmental management practices, among other things.
However, the company has since opted to decline the renewal of the contract. It is closing its forestry operations and within the next three months a total of 500 workers will be laid off.
