Bauxite strike continues at Aroaima

Nov 24, 2009 News

The Guyana bauxite mining operations of Russian aluminium giant, ‘Rusal’, have come to a halt after workers downed tools to protest a new wages agreement.

Workers at the Aroaima Bauxite Site, some 65 miles south of the capital Georgetown, said they would not accept Rusal’s offer to cut 75 jobs in order to pay the rest of workers a 10 percent increase in salary.

The strike enters it’s third day today, and there is no immediate end in sight.

“The company has not been negotiation in good faith; they are wasting our time,” Charles Sampson, the President of the Guyana Bauxite Workers Union told Reuters.

Sampson said Rusal was demanding that the Union sign an agreement sanctioning the job cuts in exchange for the pay increase.

“The Union cannot sanction job cuts; this is ridiculous” Sampson declared.

Kaieteur News understands that Chief Labour Officer, Yoganand Persaud, will meet with both parties today to try and broker an agreement.

Officials of the company are not commenting in the break down in the wages negotiations.

Guyana is the fifth largest world exporter of bauxite after Australia, Jamaica, Guinea and Suriname.

The largest volume of bauxite is produced at the Aroaima mine, managed by Rusal under it’s local subsidiary Bauxite Company Guyana Incorporated.

Rusal took over operations at Aroaima in the country’s main mining district of Linden, located some 65 miles from the capital Georgetown.

Rusal, which bought over the Aroaima operations from government in 2004, said the Guyana operations help to meet it’s self-sufficiency in raw materials.

According to an assessment done by the company in 2004, the aggregate reserves of these deposits may amount to over 100 million tonnes of bauxite, which is sufficient for providing raw materials to the refinery with a capacity of 1.4 million tonnes of alumina per year for over 25 years.

The company is conducting the feasibility study for the constructing of a refinery in the Linden district.

This is the second strike to hit the company this year. In May, workers were on strike for three days, and the company is currently suing Union leaders for that strike, saying production lost amounted to US$290, 000.