Rusal took its position to the brink

Mar 17, 2019 Editorial

For Rusal, sanity and a return to consciousness came late: what it had to do first, it is doing last. When all is considered, it is difficult to understand its thinking and tactics.
From the get-go, there had to be a single consideration: does this place, this investment make sense? If neither does not, then time to go. But clearly, the Guyana bauxite investment and operations were not a basket case or a bleeding, losing proposition in terms of the visions of the Russian brain trust.
That crucial hurdle required no last-minute examination of the real state of the books. Thus, all along the Guyana investment represented a place to stay, a place in which there was promise and of actually recording a favourable return.
Thus, for Rusal to adopt a harsh stance at the beginning of this most recent phase of its relationship with Guyanese partners flies in the face of commonsense, business sense, and any management sense. It could have bought time by playing the usual corporate games.
This included stonewalling by sending away its decision-makers for a vague but protracted period, and then dragging that out just to the point of exhaustion; or sheltering under some subterfuge related to consultations with the parent company for guidance; or meeting with the Department of Labour and making everybody on the other side sweat over that, while torturously reviewing proposals and options, and then repeating the same with any agreed upon union.
To put differently, Rusal could have taken a page from the Guyanese elections manual and applied that to its industrial relations travails. But company chieftains decided to gamble through one stunt after another.
Whether that was instigated or not; or just a product of European hubris will remain unanswered. Perhaps, the gamble was that, having gotten away with that precedent a decade earlier, the same strategy would succeed again.
Unfortunately, it collided with some outraged workers, an incensed nation, and an equally determined government. The current government could neither back away nor afford to lose this particular fight and especially at this critical juncture. It had to stand its ground.
The response from the Guyanese side was unequivocal, unbending, and unaccommodating. In the public relations battle, the company was losing face; in the ledgers, it was coming up empty: no workers, no operations, no money. There was no love, too. Something had to give; somebody had to blink. Rusal did so first.
What it should have done in the first place, though not necessarily in a rush, it ended up doing last through this abrupt about face. The company now announces belated, definitely compelled, interfacing with the union. Good!
Now, there must be an absence of craftiness, and only continuous manifestations of acting in good faith to resolve existing impasses. Let there be no ponderous negotiations on the thorny matter of money; and let the other reasonable demands of the workers be met.
Some lessons are obvious. The first is that situations (be they industrial relations, or political relations, or domestic relations) not be allowed to degrade to the point of near death before reason takes hold and brings about the first traces of civility and practicality.
Second, as is now undeniable, Rusal only came to this point, when it was either that or say ‘sayonara’ Guyana. The agency was forced to this point of capitulation against its will. Third, as was posited at the start, if this operation was failing, then it would have been a wiping of the dust off the feet and taking off for friendlier shores.
There is one other consideration: it could be that homebound Russian powers, with an eye on Venezuela, see it as an asset in place: please stay, don’t go.

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