MINISTER of Social Protection with responsibility for Labour, Keith Scott has summoned the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI) to a meeting next Wednesday to discuss outstanding issues.The meeting is scheduled for 09:30hrs in the Labour Department’s boardroom located at lot 82, Brickdam.

In a comprehensive letter to the management of the company, Scott pointed out that the differences subsisting between the company and the union had been festering far too long and that it was time they were put to rest.

One of the many issues, which the ministry intends to discuss with the principals of the RUSAL and the Executives of the union is the Company’s persistent reluctance to meet and treat with the recognised union, which is the Guyana Bauxite, and General Workers’ Union (GB&GWU).

The Ministry noted that it had been in discussions with the relevant parties, which are the GB and GWU, and RUSAL separately during the past seven months, but the time has come to engage them jointly, so that amicable solutions to the differences can be determined.

“As the custodian of the industrial relations systems in the country and as the Ministry responsible for the maintenance of a stable industrial relations climate, it can no longer allow the differences between the parties to drag on, without a definite end in sight. The Company and the Union have been summoned to the meeting by way of separate letters,” a statement by the ministry said.

Only recently BCG had prepared a document indicating that its workers no longer wish to be represented by the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU). The company had instructed the workers to sign the document, which the company would have then forwarded to the Government of Guyana with the hope that the union would have been derecognised. Guyana Chronicle was informed that the bauxite company had told its workers that it has found a union for them, and accordingly, “they must sign the document, and it will be forwarded to the Government to put the (GB&GWU) in its place.”

The BCGI also issued contracts to those permanent employees who are perceived to be resisting the company’s position regarding the new union. “This contract gives the company the right to terminate an employee with just a month’s notice,” a source told Guyana Chronicle.