…as they await word on new CLA, salary hike

BAUXITE Company of Guyana Incorporated (BCGI), owned by Russian company RUSAL, has up until this week to get back to the Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union (GB&GWU), on negotiations for salary and a new Collective Labour Agreement (CLA), before the workers begin contemplating their options to deal with the low wages and salaries and poor working conditions.

Workers are contending that conditions at the company remain the same for employees, GB&GWU BCGI Vice-President, Garfield Brutus, said workers are particularly distressed by the state of the roads, and the situation with the transportation provided by the company.
Brutus says reports made to the management of the company continue to fall on deaf ears. He noted that reports are mainly made to the company’s Personnel Manager, Mikhail Krupenin. Calls made to company’s office for a response, have gone unanswered.

“Yes we ask them to fix the place and they’re not doing anything,” Brutus stated
“They does give you a negative answer, they always give you a negative answer. They don’t tell you nothing proper, sometimes they don’t say anything at all, or sometimes they say they fixing and they not fixing anything.”

Over five months have passed since employees ended a five-week strike, and the company agreed to recognise the Union, work on a new CLA, and address salary and other concerns of workers. In early May, 2019, a proposed CLA was submitted by the Union to the company but nothing has been forthcoming from the company since. And this has not been sitting well with the workers.

“It is brewing in the air that the guys are very, very upset,” explained the BCGI Union Branch President Ephraim Velloza.

The Union says the company has up until this week to say something on the matter.
“We are keeping our fingers crossed that by Monday they make a decision so that we can go into negotiations. They said they would’ve gotten back to us, but the time frame would be expiring Monday, so I don’t know if tomorrow or Tuesday they would call us in for re-negotiations, because we still have outstanding discussions and things to put in place like the CLA,” he disclosed.

If the company doesn’t give a response by this week the Union is considering its options.
“I don’t want to transmit our plans but the guys are getting frustrated and when people get frustrated all kinds of things happen, so I am not saying what we would do or what we wouldn’t do, but what we are saying is that we are giving them up to Monday. The workers are very, very tense at the present moment because the working conditions are deplorable in the mechanical section, the guys are getting very, very agitated,” he emphasized.

The last word from the company representatives on receiving the CLA and other proposals from the Union was that they had to transmit the proposals to their principals in Russia. Velloza believes that’s simply a delaying tactic by the company.

“Everything for them have to go to Russia for them to make decisions, I don’t know what’s happening. Why is it they are operating here? I have a problem with that because we can make decisions why can’t they make decisions and they have persons here who are in charge. The last thing we heard was that they had to take it to their superiors and they will get back to us, so we are waiting for them to get back to us now. I think it’s just a gimmick game that they are playing for us to get frustrated and forfeit our agreement,” he pointed out.

Earlier this year on February 15, several workers initiated strike action after the company imposed an arbitrary one percent pay increase on employees, three days later some 61 employees were fired and the Department of Labour (DoL) summoned the company. Sometime later another 30 employees were laid off.

The company was refusing to recognise the Union as the legitimate representative of the workers. Employees blocked a river that the company was using to transport its bauxite, halting the company’s operations. By early March the company eventually agreed to recognise the Union, and the strike officially came to an end on March 21, as the two sides agreed to begin work on a new CLA, after none had been in place since 2009.
All terminated workers were reinstated. Since then, Velloza said, a few employee complaints have been addressed.

“We have been able to accomplish some things like putting the Union in place, start getting one and two benefits like the overtime, holiday pay, we’re getting some small things in place, at least we are starting to make inroads. They have acknowledged the presence of the Union it’s just waiting for the agreements to come off the table and we go on a smooth flow again. So that is our point standing at the current moment,” he shared.

It was initially agreed, between the company and the Union, that the two sides would settle on the CLA before moving forward in the negotiations on other concerns including the salary. Velloza said the company is now back pedaling and wants to deal with the salary negotiations first, with no indication of what is holding up negotiations on the CLA.
“I feel it’s just a delaying tactic that they are doing. They say they are going to deal with the financial aspect first and then we are going to deal with the labour agreement,” Velloza said.

“I thought that [the CLA] would’ve been the easiest thing to negotiate, because it’s nothing really new just a little fine change. For me they are running from the CLA, and I think that is the most important agreement because there are benefits for every worker and their family. I don’t know, for some reason or the other all these people come to do is come here and extract the bauxite.”

Velloza said the Union has not yet made a report to the DoL, but has plans to if the negotiations do not begin this week.

In the salary proposal the Union said it looked at the salary scale at other bauxite companies, for the similar and same job categories. According to a statement from the Union, the company currently pays minimum and maximum wages at a rate of $335 and $655 per hour, respectively. The Union is proposing wages of $572 and $1040 per hour for the minimum and maximum, respectively, in their application.

Deplorable working conditions
Meanwhile workers are calling on the relevant authorities to look into the conditions under which workers at the company are made to endure. Due to bad conditions of the roads, a truck is said to have toppled with a worker inside, last week.

“This situation with this condition of the road has been going on for years, year after year. Every time the rain falls it’s in a very bad state,” explained Brutus, himself an employee of the company.

Brutus resides in Mapletown, Aroaima, a community owned by the company where workers are housed.

Outside of the working conditions, another issue of concern he says is the transportation provided by the company to transport workers from Mapletown to the work site, as well as to the mines.

He contends the buses come on time to take employees to work, however it at time takes hours before those employees leaving be taken back home. Employees start work at 6:00 hours, however shift employees coming off at 6:00 hours are made to wait before buses can take them back home.

“They making sure they bring us early when we come in the morning, but going home that’s where the problem lies, and it is unfair to the workers. When we hand over there we have to wait until sometimes minutes to 7am before we can leave. We are going through this thing over, and over. Repeatedly we talk about this transportation issue and nothing at all ain’t doing.,” Brutus said.