The statement of Sunday, February 24th by the Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union (GB&GWU) addresses once again the unceasing contempt of the Russian managers of BCGI as much for Guyana as a sovereign state as for the country’s industrial relations laws, not least those that have to do with the rights of workers. It addresses, as well, the historic indifference of successive political administrations to the unending travails which the workers have had to endure and calls for an official change in posture this time around.
All of this, of course, has been said before, so that last Sunday’s statement has a familiar rhetorical ring to it. What the statement does, if anything is to provide a poignant reminder that all of the parties have simply been marking time on the issue.
In the space of a few short days a team of government officials led by Minister of State Joe Harmon have met with the RUSAL officials and after that another team that included Minister of Social Protection Amna Ally sat down with the Russians at the BCGI work site. Both instances brought forth relatively polite reminders to the Russians regarding the need to be mindful of the workers’ rights. None of this is new. But that is not all. Previous pronouncements have never really been followed up by a serious holding of the Russians’ feet to the proverbial fire.
It was the same, incidentally, with the previous administration and it is difficult not to draw the conclusion that the present state of affairs is not the result of government opting to play a sort of gentle ‘footsy’ with the Russians each time the need arose for them to intervene to check their excesses.
Nor is the GB&GWU itself blameless in all this. Its General Secretary, Mr. Lincoln Lewis can hardly deny that what was once a militant industrial relations force in the mining sector is now considerably reduced. It lacks both the organizational strength and the strong leadership it once had, Lewis himself being the only surviving member of a team that had once won the respect of the management of the entire bauxite industry and of Omai Gold Mines Ltd.
That being said nothing but the most fulsome praise accrues to those militant BCGI workers who, despite all of the threats and bullying by the Russians continue not only to stand strong but to publicly identify with what is, in effect, an ‘outlawed’ union. Here, one of the standout militants and a man respected by his colleagues, is the GB&GWU’s Vice President, Mr. Ivan Leacock, a longstanding bauxite worker.
All of this is simply to say that as far as the Russian managers and the workers at RUSAL are concerned we have passed that way before so that the GB&GWU’s recent statement is no more than a rhetorical reminder of how little (if anything at all) has been achieved in putting this matter to rest; and frankly, a point has been reached where the last thing we need in attempting to change the situation is more rhetoric.
As has already been mentioned, meetings between government and BCGI officials and subsequent elaborate statements are nothing new. All of those have amounted to nothing. The same can be said about the militant sounding pronouncements made by the union each time a crisis arises. So that if the recent meeting between the two sides and the urgings of the government side that have to do with respect for the country’s constitution, the rights of the workers and issues of those kinds, including, a priori, the right of the union to engage both its members and the management of the company, then we are on a hiding to nowhere. The reality is the parties concerned have continually and comprehensively failed to translate rhetoric into corrective action as far as the BCGI problem is concerned and when that happens the next round of rhetoric does no more than create a we-have-heard-it-all-before kind of irritation particularly amongst the victims, the BCGI workers.
It is no secret that from several reports RUSAL has a less than stellar record in terms of its relations with workers in other economically poor but bauxite-rich countries. From all that we have read the governments in those countries are largely muzzled in their protestations on account of the monetary and job-creation contributions which RUSAL’s presence brings. What it also brings, it would appear, and the BCGI experience bears that out, is a contempt for the native work force and it seems for the laws of the host country. If sovereignty is to have any real meaning the posture of the Russians is untenable.
As for the GB&GWU, the reality is that in its present state of considerable weakness it is hardly in a position to ‘lock horns’ with the Russians at BCGI. Indeed, the union does not even possess what ought to be the automatic prerogative of access to its members at their work site. That is not a convivial environment for effective representation and if the GB&GWU wants to remain relevant its priority must be to build the requisite capacity to provide effective worker representation.
The BCGI situation is a case of foreign interests demonstrating contempt for the country’s sovereignty. That is a national concern not a politically partisan one. It is for the political opposition as much as the wider trade union movement to sound their voices here since none of these can pretend to be unaware of the problem.
If there is nothing wrong with the GB&GWU calling on the government to ‘step up’ more assertively in the matter of the abuse of the workers at BCGI by the Russian management, it needs as well to be aware of its own responsibility for providing effective representation. Accordingly, stepping up capacity has to be its main priority. Frankly, its most recent statement hardly goes beyond what has been said repeatedly in the past.
