By Tamica Garnett
THE Bauxite Company of Guyana Incorporated (BCGI), owned by Russian company RUSAL, on Wednesday informed 142 employees that they were being laid off effective from Thursday, 23 January, citing the reason as “reduced operations” due to “shortage of fuel”.
The list accounts for almost half of the company’s 300 plus employees and is said to cover employees from the Mines Department, Workshop and Geological Department. Signed by the company’s Managing Director, Genadii Derevyankho, the notice is said to have been placed, around late afternoon, on notice boards at the company’s Kurubuka Mines and Aroiama Settlement Community.

It comes at a time when talks between the company and the employees’ Union, the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GBGWU) have been stalled for weeks during discussions on salary agreements. Reports are that the company has been dismantling and removing equipment from the work site for some time now. “We wish to advise that we are forced to reduce operations and lay off employees due to shortage of fuel. Unfortunately, the employees listed below are affected by the reduced operations and have to be laid off effective from 23rd January, 2020, and to be recalled as soon as the situation stabilises,” the notice read, before going on to list the 142 employees by name and job title.

When contacted last evening, GBGWU President, Lincoln Lewis, noted that the Union was in the process of engaging workers, and will be making a statement later today. Lewis established that the Union was never engaged by the company on the situation. However, last week Tuesday, the Union had gotten word that the company held a meeting, where department heads were asked to put together a list of employees to be retrenched. “The company has not informed the Union. They said nothing to us. We have not heard from them for a good time,” Lewis said. Some employees are calling the situation disrespectful.
“Personally, I am very angry about the situation. What I do know is that we as the workers are not just going to lay back and allow these people to walk all over us again,” expressed one employee. “This company continues to disrespect the workers and continue to show no regard for the law of this country. They are sending home over 100 workers without informing the workers’ union or and the government.”

Branch Union Representative, Garfield Brutus, shared similar sentiments. “These Russians doing as they please; the company doesn’t tell workers anything. All we know is that mines guys just going to work and only a few days some of them working, some days they not working at all. Apparently [the notice] put up today sometime this afternoon. Is almost the entire mines [department] they lay off,” Brutus reported.

Last year February, the company laid off 60 workers who took strike action against an arbitrarily enforced one per cent salary increase. The strike action ended in March, with a small victory for the Union, with the company reinstating all fired employees, and finally agreeing to recognise the Union, something it had fought for years.  However, notwithstanding that agreement, the Union has been having difficulties engaging with the Union to have a new Collective Labour Agreement (CLA) signed.

The company and the Union began conciliation talks, last August, after salary negotiations ended in a stalemate between the two sides over salary negotiations after the union rejected a three per cent pay increase offered by the company.

Several conciliation meetings were held, at the Department of Labour, presided over by Chief Labour Officer, Charles Ogle. However, no meeting between the two sides has been held for some time now. Earlier last month, two employees of the company were hospitalised after being electrocuted while on duty. Employees were not pleased with the lack of attention the situation was given by the company’s management, which did not summon the company’s ambulance for the injured employees. Relations between the Union and the company have been frayed since 2009 when the company dismissed 57 employees, in a situation that was never resolved.