Never before in independent Guyana have workers been this targeted for economic annihilation

Jan 03, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The SN edition of December 25, 2010 reported that Labour Minister, Manzoor Nadir, has informed the National Assembly that the Labour Ministry has remained engaged with the workers who were dismissed by RUSAL (Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc) and to date only four has visited the Ministry. He further sought to blame the Guyana Bauxite & General Workers Union of being hesitant in getting the workers to visit the ministry.
The Minister is deliberately misleading the National Assembly and nation and were he asked to provide evidence of the claims he made he would have been unable to.
The facts are: 1) since March the union provided the ministry with copies of all the 57 dismissal letters issued to the workers by BCGI, and 2) the four workers the minister claimed the ministry has engaged and dealing with the matter “condignly,” to date it has done absolutely nothing on behalf of these workers. If the ministry is serious about solving this matter they would have already addressed the case of the four and it would have shown that it is prepared to uphold its legal commitment.
The Government, Minister, Chief Labour Officer and some operatives in the Ministry, if they are allowed their way, would prefer not to have a resolution on BCGI dismissal of the workers and the company’s refusal to engage the Union which goes contrary to the Trade Union Recognition Act 98:07 Section 23. (1) ‘Compulsory recognition and duty to treat’ which expressly states “Where a trade union obtains a certificate of recognition for workers comprised in a bargaining unit in accordance with this Part, the employer shall recognise the union, and the union and the employer shall bargain in good faith and enter into negotiations with each other for the purpose of collective bargaining.”
Under the Labour Law 98:01, Section 4, the Minister is empowered to act to bring a resolution to the matter, yet he refuses to act after more than a year, which sees 62 workers continue to be denied the right to work, and losses to themselves and families of over $70 million in income and mounting for every day the matter stays unresolved.
I have had cause to call Government’s economic marginalisation programme towards the community, economic genocide. How can the Government explain to the workers of this nation that their actions thus far are not geared to destroy a people economically? Bauxite workers seek no favour, nor ask for no alms. Over the last 18 years what they have been demanding is the respect for their rights and freedoms, of which unfortunately in this instance the Government is the adjudicator of the Labour Laws and refuses to effect movement on the BCGI matter, other than promises and dilatory tactics.
How can the Government not be accused of snuffing out the economic livelihood of a people who had jobs, go to work, have been working but when they took action consistent with the law in the protection and advancement of their wellbeing, Government sides with a  company it has shareholding relationship with to fire them?
How can a people and the nation not think that these continuous acts by the Government to ignore the calls for justice are not discriminatory, even as matters of similar nature in other industries, happened during the period under review, have been given the just immediate attention and action by Government who rightly enforces the law in order that due process is adhered to in dismissal, and where there is a strike normalcy returns to the workplace, and workers are allowed to continue their and the nation’s development?
Why is Government deliberately putting a people, renowned for their skills and work ethics, on the breadline?
Why a matter this simple is being allowed to fester for more than a year? Why big men/women, with wives/husbands and children, other responsibilities and aspirations are being denied a living or forced to scrounge for one as the Government sits on its laurel and does nothing?  This country suffers from skills exodus yet the Government allows the highly skilled to be un-utilized or under-utilized. Is this fair, just and right?
Were these questions honestly answered they lead back to the deliberate policy of Government to marginalize a people, project them as lazy to others, reduce them to mendicants in order to make them dependent on their operatives throwing anything at them and treating them anyhow.
We have reached a nadir in this country when persons are denied the right to work, and moreso not because work isn’t available or they don’t have the requisite skills set, but because the Government decides that it will engage in acts to deny them work. Never before in independent Guyana have workers been this targeted for economic annihilation.
These things are wrong and it is an injustice to the workers and the society as a whole. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. rightly said “Injustice anywhere poses a threat to justice everywhere.”
While the Government remains heartless and cruel, as citizens, we cannot relent because it will be the wrong thing to do. We have to continue to be our brothers’ keepers, speak out, stare down, and challenge the injustices and abuse of our rights, freedoms and resources.
Lincoln Lewis

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