…union declares ‘enough is enough’
…Labour Department to look into issue of fuel shortage

LAID-OFF workers of the Russian-owned Bauxite Company of Guyana Incorporated (BCGI) have once again blocked the Berbice river, preventing the movement of bauxite (from the company) out of Guyana. The union has made a number of demands that they expect to be addressed before any ‘let-up’ can be considered.

This was communicated to the Department of Labour (DoL) when the union and the company met on Thursday, following the firing of some 142 workers by the company. RUSAL claimed that the firing of the staff was as a result of a fuel shortage which was affecting their operations. At the meeting on Thursday the Labour Department promised to investigate claims of fuel shortage by the Russian company. Executives of BCGI, a subsidiary of RUSAL, the largest bauxite company in the world, met with representatives from the Union and the Chief Labour Officer, Charles Ogle, at the DoL Offices on Brickdam on Thursday. Employees, since Thursday morning, have blocked the river which the company uses to transport its product. The company is threatening action against the employees. However, the employees’ Union – Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GBGWU)- says it stands firm with the employees.

According to reports, the company is claiming that it has not received prerequisite from the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) clearing the company’s duty-free importation of fuel, which led to the shortage. “They say that they have a fuel problem. We have to get to the bottom of this to know what is what, in terms of the reality of it or not. I will get a proper briefing from my staff in the morning,” Minister of Labour, Keith Scott, informed the Guyana Chronicle on Thursday afternoon, after the meeting.

The fuel situation comes two months after reports first began, in another section of the media, that the company was retailing fuel that it was buying on duty free concession; subsequently GRA is said have begun to investigate the situation. The company is also said to have dismantled and sold equipment that it was also granted duty free concession on.
Calls to Commissioner General of GRA, Godfrey Statia, on Thursday, for a comment on the issue, proved futile. Calls to the BCGI also went unanswered, while an email sent to the company’s provided email address was not responded to up to press time. The Union, however, stated that it was not buying the excuse by the company. The Union said that when questioned for evidence on its position, the company’s answers were not adding up. “What they are doing is to use the fuel situation, which has not stand the test of scrutiny to justify the sending home of 142 people. They are saying they did not receive any letter from GRA permitting them to import fuel at duty free price. They then retracted from that point and seem to be saying the letter may be there but they have not picked it up. Having been caught in this deception the management has changed its tune,” GB&GWU President, Lincoln Lewis asserted.

Lewis added that “It is an excuse the management is using and we must ask for what purpose and who are the intellectual authors and likely beneficiaries behind this move, for evidently the management must know their conduct will be stoutly questioned. Workers have had enough and the blocking of the Berbice River which started this morning is testimony to this.”

Lewis is also not pleased with the manner in which the company went about informing employees of the ‘layoff’ without notice. Under Guyana’s laws, companies are required to give employees between two weeks’ to one month’s notice in cases of a layoff, which is limited to lasting no longer than six weeks.

“They say they have had expert advice to put the notice up on the board, and not give notice to the labor department or union. When backed up about these things they were not prepared to deal with the law in itself. They are insisting that what they did was right. We have taken the position that the layoff is illegal and has to be corrected. The whole thing has to be withdrawn and rescinded,” Lewis established.

On Wednesday, BCGI informed the employees of the layoff, effective from Thursday, via notices signed by the company’s Managing Director, Genadii Derevyankho, and placed on the company’s notice boards at the company’s Kurubuka Mines and Aroiama Settlement Community.

Subsequently a meeting was called by the DoL on Thursday to address the situation. The meeting marks a recommencement of discussions between the two sides, which were in the process of conciliation on a salary agreement. The conciliation meetings first began in August, 2019 and were held regularly but have not been held for some time now. Earlier last month, the company was once again in the limelight when two employees of the company were hospitalised after suffering electric shock while on duty. Employees were not pleased with the poor attention the situation was given by the company’s management, which did not summon the company’s ambulance for the injured employees.

That incident has been investigated by the Occupational Health and Safety Department.
Lewis said the matter relating to the electrocution incident was among the list of demands the Union needed to see ironed out before it was willing to advise any of the employees to remove the rope from the river.

“We will only facilitate any opening of the river where our members be involved on the condition that the issue of wages and salaries be settled now, by arbitration or whatever; the whole [lay off] has to be withdrawn and rescinded; ……….the two guys hit by electrical power must be compensated,” Lewis established. 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 over the years.  However, notwithstanding that agreement, the Union has been having difficulties engaging with the company to have a new Collective Labour Agreement (CLA) signed.

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.