Government, finally, appears to have come to terms with the reality of the wholly untenable nature of the relationship between itself and the Russian management of the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI). Today, if last Friday’s pronouncement by the subject Minister, Raphael Trotman becomes reality, President David Granger and Ministers of his Government will have an opportunity to examine what Trotman says would be “a technical and legal assessment of all of RUSAL’s operations” prepared by the Guyana Geology & Mines Commission (GGMC) …”and we are looking at all of the legal and other consequences, either them closing or we closing them…” It is the first real sign that the Government of Guyana is prepared to throw down the gauntlet in response to what has been no less than RUSAL’s challenge to the sovereignty of this nation. As Trotman correctly declared on Friday the status quo has become untenable.
If the operations of BCGI are wound up – and things would seem, for the moment at least, to be headed in that direction – the most important negative consequence would be significant job losses with all of its unfortunate implications for the victims and the economy as a whole. And yet it has been the workers themselves, the likely victims, who have been, in the forced absence of any kind of effective union representation, pressing government to find ways of bringing the quite chaotic labour relations regime at BCGI to an end by putting more pressure on the RUSAL management to respect the laws of the land, particularly those that have to do with the rights of the workers.
If it is true that the Government of Guyana has a 10% share in the company that has meant absolutely nothing in the broader scheme of things. The fact of the matter is that since the Russians came here after the signing of the agreement in 2004 no Guyanese has held a position of anything even remotely resembling real authority in the company. It is the Russians that have always ‘called the shots’ in the matter of how the company is run and the rules that apply. It has done so having been thoroughly briefed on the requirements of the Constitution in the matter of labour relations.
There have since been arguments made about the failure of the then political administration to try to get more in terms of adherence to the labour laws out of the BCGI agreement, an argument that has been dismissed elsewhere as overlooking the fact that the BCGI deal was signed at a time when Guyana was desperate for foreign investment, particularly in sectors like mining and in which circumstance it was RUSAL and not the Government of Guyana that held the ‘whip hand’ at the time of the signing.
RUSAL’s employer/employee relations – and the pattern of its industrial relations policy at its bauxite mining operations in West Africa, is driven by pretty much the same unshakable tunnel vision that puts the interests of the Aluminum giant first and considers workers’ interests, only insofar as those coincide with the interests of the company. The track records in terms of pushback from African governments have also been nothing to ‘shout about.’
Leaving aside the industrial relations climate which the Russians have long set by simply ‘outlawing’ the Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union (GB&GWU) the company’s management has unhesitatingly adopted a coarse and uncompromising pushback policy against what, frankly, has been the feeblest of assertive policies by successive political administrations to follow the law. Whereas the previous administration had been known to defend its position of indifference to the excesses of the Russians at BCGI, the current one has – at least up until now, proffered a low profile in response to the company’s excesses.
As has already been mentioned there are some truths about the RUSAL presence here that must be acknowledged, like, for example, the employment opportunities afforded by the BCGI operation. What has always been at issue, however, is whether or not the gains accruing from RUSAL’s investment were a fair tradeoff for what Guyana has had to endure in terms of, first, the company’s complete and utter disregard for workers’ rights and by extension for the country’s Constitution and secondly, the overwhelming disrespect, nay, contempt that the Russian management has continually demonstrated for high officials of government and for the Government of Guyana as a whole.
What Minister Trotman’s statement of last Friday appears to signal is that (at least so it would appear) the Government of Guyana has finally bitten the bullet insofar as this country’s relations with RUSAL are concerned. It understands, at least so one hopes, that while there are clear risks involved in starting down a road brinkmanship, it must run the risk of a possible closure of BCGI if that is what it will take to end a message to RUSAL that the principle of sovereignty and the dignity associated with statehood are legitimate and, we hope, inalienable rights that even small and poor countries like Guyana dare not relinquish, lest there be nothing left. If what obtains at BCGI is reflective of RUSAL’s management style in poor countries where it runs its bauxite mining operations then there would appear to be no viable option to a faceoff now, before the company’s posture becomes even further entrenched.
