‘Cordial’ meeting with RUSAL officials step...

surprise since he had had no prior warning that they had been expected in Guyana. “My best guess is that the visit by the RUSAL officials arose out of some contact that had been made by the Government of Guyana and that it may have been the result of the crisis that had arisen here,” he said.

While welcoming the visit, as well as his own meeting with the officials, Lewis said he was still “disappointed” that the Ministry of Social Protection had declined to send “more assertive signals” to the Russian management at BCGI regarding the concerns that had arisen out of the frequent complaints of both the workers and the union. “The truth of the matter is that both as a shareholder in BCGI and as the custodians of the state, government had a responsibility to intervene long ago since there was no doubting the evidence that there were serious problems at the work site,” he added.

Lewis, nonetheless, was prepared to say that the visit here by the RUSAL officials was “a step in the right direction.”

And according to Lewis, while his meeting with the visiting officials was yet to realize and “concrete understandings” there was now “an expectation that there would be some forward movement, hopefully in the direction of restoring their union to the workers. The GB&GWU’s priority at this time is to continue to encourage its members at BCGI to keep the faith and to make itself available for such discourses as might arise and might lead in a positive direction.”