THE Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GBGWU) is maintaining that it will not accept less than an eight per cent pay increase for 2019-2020 even though the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) is contending that it could offer only six per cent for 2019.
GBGWU General-Secretary Lincoln Lewis said he sees it being just a matter of time before the dispute goes to arbitration.

“They are still offering a six per cent and the minimum we can accept is eight per cent for these two years. What we are looking at is immediately we pay 2019 retroactive to January 1 to alleviate the anxiety at this time, and when we finish that we can discuss now 2009- 2018. They are not prepared to address that area,” Lewis said.
BCGI’s six per cent offer comes after an initial three per cent from the company was immediately rejected by the union in August.

As the weekly conciliation meetings between the two sides continued, on Tuesday, at the Department of Labour (DoL), things once again ended in a stalemate, lasting just 40 minutes before it ended.

The meeting was chaired by Chief Labour Officer, Charles Ogle, who is now expected to submit a report on the matter to Social Protection Minister, Amna Ally.
Arbitration is the final step in the collective bargaining process in Guyana. It sees the final decision on a dispute being settled by an arbiter or arbitration tribunal, and both parties are bound by the decisions of the arbiter, regardless of which side it favours.
“We are convinced a long time, given the history of this company, that the place we have to go to is arbitration because they never want to agree to anything. They see the issue of workers asking for anything as a hindrance,” Lewis contended.

After almost 10 years of refusing to recognise GBGWU, the BCGI, a subsidiary of Russian company RUSAL, earlier this year agreed to recognise the union and work on a Collective Labour Agreement (CLA), which includes addressing issues of wages and salaries increases.
The union said it is not giving up on the period 2009–2018 and wants the company to address salary increases for that period in addition to the 2019– 2020 period. Lewis said, at Tuesday’s meeting, the union offered the option of dealing with the two periods separately.
“The company has a problem with addressing 2009-2018, so we said look, we can address the issue in two phases. We are saying we are not prepared to give up 2009-2018. We are saying we are prepared to go it this way where we address 2019 and 2020, but that is predicated on the company being willing to discuss 2009-2018,” Lewis said.

Lewis said because the company did not address salary increases during the period 2009-2018, it is now paying significantly lower than one of Guyana’s other bauxite company, BOSAI, which is owned by a Chinese company.

According to Lewis, the union awaits the CLO’s submission of a report to the minister and hearing what the minister has to say before making its next move.