-after complaints of non-payment for ‘extra’ work

MINISTER of Labour, Joseph Hamilton, on Friday, sought to impress upon representatives of the Republic Bank Limited (RBL), the need for the formation of employee welfare committees, following the ministry’s receipt of an anonymous letter from an employee.
During an interview with the Guyana Chronicle, Minister Hamilton said the employee complained about not being appropriately compensated for extra work that is being done.
Hamilton said the bank’s representatives, during a meeting held earlier in the day, confirmed the contents of the letter and explained that employees were expected to be retroactively compensated by November, 2021. “I have a letter that came to me making some specific allegations that concerns anonymous employees who had issues about promotion and issues that they’re doing work that is more technical and they are yet to be paid. So, I wanted to have a conversation with Republic Bank,” Minister Hamilton said. “They clarified that some of the issues in the letter were factual issues, but they’re saying it has to do with the upgrading of their IT issues and some people will have to be reassigned.

They’re saying that by the end of November all of these matters will be resolved and clarified and all the retroactive payments that they have for employees, they will honour those obligations.” Hamilton noted that he subsequently spoke to the representatives about the company’s mechanism for employees to report grievances. He noted that while the company said that there is a procedure in place, he reminded them of the legal requirement for employee welfare committees.
“I sought to say to them there is a usefulness in having a workers representative or organisation. They don’t have one, they have a procedure up the chain for if you have a grievance as an employee, which to me those things don’t work. You need some statutory arrangement whereby once a month, the workers’ representatives shall engage management. I said to them it’s a good business practice,” Hamilton said. The minister added: “About on-the-spot at every branch you have some subset of worker representative organisation that can intercede on behalf of staff. The fact that people anonymously wrote me, it means that whatever procedure they have isn’t working or the workers don’t believe in it or trust it and that’s why they reached out to me.”

Up to press time, Republic Bank had not responded to this publication’s email seeking a comment.