Rusal standoff … No investor will be allowed to come here and mistreat workers – Govt.

Feb 23, 2019 News

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By Leonard Gildarie

About 70 miles from Linden, in a little community known as Aroaima, a group gathered.
In the hot midday sun, a man sweated profusely, using a wooden paddle to turn a large cauldron of chicken curry. He is preparing lunch for scores of workers and others who have gathered, including reporters.
It was an unlikely setting for the battle that is taking place.

They are staffers of the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI), a local subsidiary of Rusal, an aluminum giant owned by Russians. A number of the persons gathered are friends to the community, many of them women who came to lend support.
They were waiting for Minister of Social Protection, Amna Ally and Minister Keith Scott, who has charge over labour. They were supposed to come and update workers on a meeting that Government had with the Russians and possibly bring some good news.
At around 4pm, the ministerial team, including Ally, Scott and Chief Labour Officer, Charles Ogle, arrived.
Minister Ally told union leaders and other senior officials that Rusal had met with government and were told in no uncertain that they must reinstate the workers as soon as possible.

The management was also told that the GB&GWU must be recognized and that a repeat of the situation should not “resurface. She said that Government wants peace and cooperation.
The government is on the side of the workers, she stressed. Government will not allow any investor to come and mistreat workers, she said. For several days now, workers have been holed up in Maple Town, a housing area of Aroaima, Region 10.
Some 61 of them were sacked over the weekend for downing tools, in rejection of a one percent increase that they received in their pay packets. It was not the first time that Rusal has terminated workers on such a mass scale. In 2009, 57 employees had their services terminated for protesting for better working conditions and pay.
Rusal/BCGI continued their business as usual under the administration of the then President, Bharrat Jagdeo. There were no sanctions for Rusal for what union leaders said then was a clear breach of workers’ rights.
There were protests for months and it became a talking point and even an election issue.
This time, the workers are resolute. Work has stopped. BCGI has brought in two senior officials from Rusal to meet with Government to find a resolution. They refuse to leave Maple Town, an area that is about 12 miles from Kwakwani. That waterfront area is on the Berbice River that is five miles from Kurubuka, where the bauxite mining is taking place.

At Maple Town, the difference in accommodation was stark. The management lived in air-conditioned homes that had Dish TV. Three or four hundred feet away, there were some modest homes for supervisors. About 1,500 feet away, shift workers are made to stay in camps that they say are barely fit for human living.
At the senior staffers’ area, a senior cop blocked the reporters’ vehicle, saying that the area is off-limits. The senior cop was polite. Staffers were livid.
Rusal came here under Jagdeo in the mid-2000s. Before that, between 1990 and 2000, US-owned Reynolds Metal had run Aroaima, building homes, and setting up operations. It pulled out around 2000, workers explained yesterday.
Government ran it for a number of years, before Alcoa tried for a few mornings before giving up.
The Jagdeo administration then struck a deal with Rusal, which came in and inherited the operations.
“I can tell you we don’t know the deal. What we know is that all you are seeing here is what they got. Workers received jobs but the conditions deteriorated.
Workers were eager to meet reporters. It was an opportunity to get their voices heard.
For workers, the one-percent is a slap in the face.
“Some of us got $6 a week increase. A supervisor received $500. What are we doing?”
The situation with Rusal was puzzling.
For 14 years, its operating company, BCGI, has not been declaring a profit. The Government of Guyana owns 10 percent. It received nothing. Throughout the time, Rusal has been digging up the bauxite without stop.The company was told to meet with the union on Monday at the Ministry of Social Protection- the Department of Labour office on Brickdam. They refused. The company said it cannot have talks while General Secretary of the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU), Lincoln Lewis, was present.
The reason is simple. Rusal is refusing to recognize the union. The Labour Department insists that the union is legal. On Thursday, at the Ministry of the Presidency, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, warned the company that it must respect the workers’ right and that a resolution must be reached.
Yesterday, workers insisted that the company must recognize its union and negotiate for a new collective labour agreement and proper transportation arrangement
They demand that the company regularize the holiday pay issue and improve the housing conditions.

The workers accuse management of suspending and terminating workers without a chance for a hearing. They also said they want safety issues to be tackled. Many times, when they complain, they are reprimanded or punished.
Just after three yesterday, a truck with hampers came for the 61 workers.
However, Lewis, the union leader, warned the workers to hold one head and for the food to be collected by union officials.
Rusal has hired former Chief Labour Officer, Mohamed Akeel, to advise them.
Yesterday, with his union branch officials, President of GB&GWU, Ephraim Velloza, said that the union has demands. It wants pay for each day that workers had been off the job.
The workers wanted the recognition that the union enjoyed prior to 2009 to be returned.
The union also demanded that the issues will be settled by arbitration, with government naming the chairperson, and the union and company having one representative each.
The workers said that the decision of the arbitration panel will be final and binding to both parties.
“We are prepared not to move. Many persons are young…they have nowhere else to turn to,” Ivan Leacock, 68, a crane operator disclosed.
He has been working since the early 90s in the Berbice bauxite area.
For many, the situation is a hopeless one…there is little recourse at the Department of Labour.
“We read that the Russians say they don’t know and can’t commit to give up back our job. It is same old, same old. Different government, same thing.”

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