Bauxite unions say will not recognise severance pay pact
Stabroek News
June 29, 2002
The two bauxite unions representing workers at the crisis-ridden Bermine operations at Kwakwani and Everton have accused President Bharrat Jagdeo of misleading the nation about the situation in the industry. They said they would not recognise any severance pay agreement reached by certain Bermine workers with the President.
The presidents - Charles Sampson of the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union and Cyril Conway of the National Mining and General Workers Union - asserted at a press conference on Thursday, at the Guyana Trades Union Congress’ boardroom that under the Severance Pay Act it was only the unions that could bargain for improved severance pay packages. They asserted that their unions were not represented on the committee. The committee looking at the severance pay package with the President comprises a representative from each of the unions and three workers. The other committee, looking at the options for the industry with the President, comprises representatives of Bermine, Bidco, its parent company and representatives of the workers.
The committee established by the President to look at the issue of improving the severance pay package and the options for the future of the industry in Berbice began meeting on Wednesday, according to a release from the Government Information Agency. It met again on Thursday and the discussions will continue next week, the release said.
Eddie Phillips, principal assistant secretary of Sampson’s union and Maylene Griffith, general secretary of Conway’s union were also at the press conference.
Sampson said that the two unions were not against the merger of the Bermine and Aroaima operations, only the loss of jobs resulting from it. He contended that the alternative Bermine Employees Group’s (BEG) proposal would have saved more jobs than the merger. The Bermine workers at Kwakwani rejected this proposal saying that Lewis and the Bermine managers concocted it to save the jobs of the management workers. They contended too that they knew very little of the plan. President Jagdeo had also said that there was no information on who the strategic investor in the BEG proposal was.
But Griffith said this was not correct as some of the workers present at the Kwakwani meeting with the President had volunteered to be part of the group that drew up the proposals.
Sampson said that some of the workers might be ignorant of all the details of the proposals. He charged that the government sabotaged the proposals by engaging the respective groups outside the committee.
Sampson also defended his union’s general secretary, Lincoln Lewis, who chairs Bermine. He said that Lewis’ motivation was to save the workers’ jobs. He asserted too that there was no conflict of interest in Lewis chairing the Bermine board and being a union official, explaining that it was the Bermine management and not the board that conducted negotiations with the unions. Lewis is also general secretary of the Trades Union Congress.
Commenting on the meeting with the workers at Kwakwani, which was held at the Mechanical Workshop, Sampson said that not many of his union members were present. However, he conceded that the workers would applaud the announcement by the President that he would approve the improvements of Bermine’s severance pay package. He said that Bermine’s package was the lowest of the three bauxite operations, pointing out that it was two weeks per year up to a maximum of two years and an extra week for workers 45 and over with ten years’ service.
The Linmine package provides for six weeks’ pay a year to a maximum of 104 weeks for foremen or general foremen and a maximum of 52 weeks for workers below that level. Sampson said that the union was now negotiating for eight weeks pay a year with no maximum cap.
Griffith contended too that the workers could not but back the President’s plan after he threatened the closure of Bermine if they did not accept it.
Both Sampson and Griffith contended that the workers were tricked into voting for losing their jobs, pointing out that there were no alternative employment opportunities for them when they were made redundant.
President Jagdeo promised to provide redundant workers with free house lots either at Kwakwani or on the coast, in addition to improved severance pay. But the union heads noted that without jobs, they would be unable to access mortgages to build homes and the severance pay would be insufficient to keep them going for any length of time.
Commenting on Bermine’s problems, which led to the Kwakwani operations shutting down, Sampson blamed this on its inability to access the Berbice River loading basin to which he says Viceroy was given exclusive access.
He contended that to survive Bermine needed unhindered access to the loading basin to ship its bauxite, arguing that the facility was owned by the state and no foreign company should have a monopoly on it.
Sampson accused the government of being ambivalent on the issue of monopoly as while it encouraged the Viceroy monopoly it was on the back of the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company to break its monopoly.
He said that by granting Viceroy exclusive access to the loading basin, the government had confined Bermine customers to a monopoly, which was a breach of the CARICOM and WTO (World Trade Organisation) agreements to which Guyana is a signatory.
Meanwhile, the GINA release said that the workers’ meeting on Wednesday "gives full support for the work of the committee and endorsed its recommendations."
A motion moved by the workers at the meeting accepted that the merger of Bermine and Aroaima Bauxite Company would result in the loss of jobs and welcomed the President’s agreement to review the collective bargaining agreement with a view to improving it.