57 trade union leaders of the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers’ Union (GBGWU) were summarily sacked, without recourse, in late 2009 when miners at the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI) went on strike. BCGI is 90% owned by the Russian aluminum company RusAl and 10% by the government of Guyana.
The company gave 600 miners the choice of accepting one of three bargaining proposals, and when miners voted to accept management’s least desired offer, BCGI terminated its collective bargaining relationship with GBGWU and fired the union’s leaders for strike activity that was caused by this collective bargaining charade.
Subsequently, BCGI has used coercion, intimidation, and fear to get workers remaining on the job to sign a deauthorization petition in order to decertify GBGWU. RusAl and BCGI managers have held captive meetings in which they used threats and intimidation to get workers to sign the petition and to turn away from their long-time union.
Such actions are flagrant violations of core labour standards, and the GBGWU is requesting that labour activists worldwide register that complaint directly with Guyana’s Minister of Labour. The message is that he halts this employer-perpetrated, union destroying initiative immediately.
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=649
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