By Rehana Ahamad
THE ongoing wage dispute between the Guyana Oil Company (GuyOil) and its unionised workers is currently being addressed at the level of the Ministry of Labour. This was confirmed by the Chief Labour Officer (CLO), Charles Ogle, who explained that the ministry had intervened prior to the commencement of industrial action on Wednesday.
According to President of the Clerical and Commercial Workers’ Union, Sherwood Clarke, the action took the form of a sit-in, which saw approximately 300 workers reporting for work, but downing their tools.
Ogle, in an invited comment, said he was a bit surprised by the action taken, since the Labour Department had already intervened and that discussions were still ongoing.
“We had a meeting on Monday,” Ogle indicated.
It was explained that at that meeting, the union reiterated its proposal for a five per cent “across-the-board” increase in wages and salaries for GuyOil workers, or, an eight per cent increase using the performance appraisal system.
“Management (of GuyOil) responded by saying nothing; nil,” Ogle noted.
Because of the bottleneck, Ogle said that he adjourned the meeting and instructed both parties to “go back and review their position”. However, GuyOil had still gone back to the meeting with nothing.
“I told them that they need to do something, because if they don’t move, we will have to move to arbitration,” Ogle noted. The Chief Labour Officer told this newspaper that the union was also cautioned against calling a strike, as of Tuesday.
“I told them that they cannot call a strike, because we are now involved; we have intervened; the company is calling it a strike and the union is calling it a sit-in,” the CLO posited.
As a courtesy, Ogle said that the company ought to have been afforded some time to provide a definitive response.
General Manager of GuyOil, Trevor Bassoo, had told this newspaper that even though the company empathises with its workers, it is not financially able to abide by a previous decision to give increases in wages and salaries, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The situation at this point in time does not allow us or permit us to issue any of those two specific forms of remuneration that the union requested,” Bassoo noted.
Meanwhile, the union president is insisting that the oil company had been operating at a profit, and can therefore afford to give back to its deserving employees.
“These are essential workers being denied; at the extraordinary meeting, they agreed that as long as the company made profits, the increases would be paid. They had their recent AGM (Annual General Meeting) and declared $2.9B as profit,” Clarke said.
He noted that in addition to salary increase, GuyOil workers are also deserving of Christmas bonuses. “GuyOil workers are considered frontline workers; they didn’t take days off and stay indoors, they continued their work,” Clarke said previously.
He said that the industrial action was as a result of an ultimatum the union had given to GuyOil.
“We told them that they had until December 18, 2020 to come back to the table to tell us something positive,” Clarke said.
As of Wednesday, Clarke said the union is still hoping to resolve the matter in a manner that is positive for the staff. At the same time, several GuyOil employees were hard at work.
