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Bauxite Union’s response to RUSAL on workers’ welfare imminent
The Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU) is expected to respond to a proposal which it had received from the Bauxite Company of Guyana Incorporated, controlled by the Russian Aluminium Company
GB&GWU General-Secretary, Lincoln Lewis
(RUSAL).
General Secretary of the union, Lincoln Lewis, told this publication that the proposal is currently being deliberated on by a team which has been put together to address it. Lewis said that he presumes by Wednesday, January 25, the company will be in receipt of an answer.
The General Secretary said that he is a member of the team which is going through the document and that it is currently on his desk. He added that at this point in time, this is the only update which can be provided by anyone involved in the matter.
The last move by RUSAL as it relates to its workers’ interests being represented was its announcement last November that it intends to establish a “Workers’ Social Welfare Committee” from among the non-management workforce.
According to the GB&GWU, who received a memo of the company’s announcement, the ‘Welfare Committee’ is expected to address workers’ socio-economic issues and serve as the avenue through which workers can relay information to the management of BCGI.
According to the GB&GWU, the missive from the Russian management of BCGI went as far as determining the exact numbers that will comprise the Welfare Committee and instructs that its ‘terms of reference and mode of operations will be made known to all employees’, evidently without any prior consultation on the mentioned terms of reference.
Based on the union’s examination of the situation, the Committee was intended to completely isolate the workers from their chosen trade union, which is the GB&GWU.
The union had called on the RUSAL workers to unanimously reject the development, describing it as an insidious control mechanism.
This move came a day after BCGI/RUSAL had refused to attend a meeting which was organised by the Ministry of Social Protection’s Department of Labour to discuss with both parties, outstanding labour-related matters.
Minister within the Ministry Keith Scott had viewed the company’s absence with great concern and found it to be very disrespectful.
The company along with ministry officials had met in August of last year to discuss over 30 grievances which workers expressed to ministry representatives when they visited the company’s mining sites.
Additionally, in that same month the GB&GWU had condemned the government for meeting with the bauxite company in the absence of complying with the 2012 High Court decision to reissue letters for the start of arbitration.
The Union had said that the move by government signalled the state’s complicity with a foreign management to disrespect the nation’s judiciary and rights of Guyanese labour. The company was also reprimanded for hiring employees on a written contract which stood to rob the country’s treasury of national insurance and income tax deductions.
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