28 June, 2010
In an attempt to find common ground in a seven-month dispute between the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers’ Union (GB&GWU) and RusAl’s Bauxite Company of Guyana (BCGI), the ICEM met in Geneva with the country’s Labour, Human Services, and Social Security Minister, Mansoor Nadir.
The meeting occurred on 15 June and included Jerry Goolsarran, the representative for the Guyanese employers’ association, who sits on the Trade Union Recognition and Certification Board, and Lydia Greene, an assistant in the Labour Ministry.
Discussion during the meeting reviewed the deep divisions resulting from a November 2009 strike by GB&GWU and the subsequent unilateral, and what the ICEM believes is illegal de-authorization by BCGI of the union at the 500-worker mine in central Guyana. The government owns 10% of the bauxite operations.
Left to Right: Labour Minister Nadir, Manfred Warda, Employers' Representative Goolsarran
Labour Minister Nadir gave the ICEM a thick dossier of events leading into and beyond the strike, and he pledged to facilitate a meeting between the union and management of the company in order to begin necessary dialogue. The ICEM believes that management of the Russian-based aluminum company has a legal responsibility to meet with leaders of the GB&GWU, and also feels it is the duty of the Labour Ministry to arrange such a meeting.
Responding to the entrenched positions of both labour and management in a follow-up letter to the labour minister, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda said, “The hard work of engagement through tripartite voluntary dialogue must now commence, and we were happy to hear of your willingness to facilitate this dialogue between GB&GWU and BCGI. Therefore, as you agreed to in our 15 June meeting, we call on you to immediately call both parties together to start open and honest talks.” (The full letter can be seen here.)
In the letter, the ICEM also expressed displeasure over the company’s undue coercion and harassment tactics in obtaining signatures by miners following the strike to decertify the GB&GWU. If a de-authorisation ballot is to go before workers by the Trade Union Recognition and Certification Board, the ICEM is insistent that the government uphold its own law, and global labour standards, ensuring that management of BCGI not interfere in workers’ free choice for or against union representation.
The ICEM has also offered to be part of dialogue in Guyana to assist in resolving the dispute.