-to focus on labour laws, penalties for breaches

THE Ministry of Labour (MoL) is planning to host a labour relations conference with approximately 80 companies involved in Guyana’s oil and gas sector by this month-end.

During a recent interview with the Guyana Chronicle, subject minister Joseph Hamilton shared that invitations for the conference which will tentatively be held on January 28, have already been sent out to the companies.

He sees the conference as a pivotal event, as it will be used to put the companies on notice regarding areas where they are breaching labour laws in Guyana and sanctions that will be imposed for non-compliance.

“We have a long list of about 80 companies that have been invited to attend. I would say the attendance is mandatory because going forward after that no one will be able to say that they are not aware as to what the law is as regards any of the functions. We have a tentative date of 28 January, where we will have a conference,” Minister Hamilton told this publication.

He said the invitations were sent out based on a list that was supplied by the Ministry of Natural Resources.

As Guyana continues to develop local content in the oil and gas industry, the MoL is seen as having a critical role to play in ensuring that Guyanese employees in this sector are being treated fairly, and are working under safe conditions.

As the official government agency in charge of ensuring that employees in Guyana are properly treated, aside from dealing with employee welfare matters, the MoL also has oversight for Occupational Safety and Health (OSH), and recruitment, which is monitored by the Central Recruitment and Manpower Agency (CRMA), as well as internship and apprenticeship arrangements, which come under the authority of the Board of Industrial Training (BIT).

Minister Hamilton explained to this publication that the conference will focus on making the companies au fait with all of Guyana’s various labour laws, and what they need to do to ensure that they become and remain compliant.

“We will outline all the obligations of companies as it [sic] relates [sic] to labour relations, and issues such as equal pay for equal work. The Chief Labour Officer will make a presentation; the head of OSH will make a presentation on the issue of safe work and safety; the CRMA head will make a presentation dealing with the issue of regulation of employment agencies and the head of BIT will make a presentation, informing, instructing and advising companies about the issue of internship and apprenticeship,” Hamilton related.

Labour in Guyana is regulated under the Laws of Guyana, Chapter 98; the Labour Act, Chapter 98:01; Employment Exchanges Act, Chapter 98:05, and Recruiting of Workers Act, Chapter 98:06.

With the advent of Guyana’s oil and gas industry over the last five years, several types of businesses not previously prominent in Guyana, have since proliferated. These particularly include private recruitment agencies and businesses offering training, internships and apprenticeship programmes.

Hamilton noted that private companies involved in these businesses are actually required to be registered with the MoL’s monitoring agencies; however, this is not being done. As a result, the company at times may be unaware of what is required of them, and arrangements with employees at times fall outside of the laws of Guyana.

Last year, Minister Hamilton had noted that there were cases where overtime was not being correctly calculated by some recruitment agencies.

Over the past year the MoL has been embarking on a rigorous capacity-building campaign to better monitor labour relations across the country, with particular emphasis on the oil and gas sector. Through these developments, according to Minister Hamilton, for the first time last year the ministry was able to have employees travel to the offshore site and do inspections.

“We had engagements with Exxon Mobil, and for the first time as an oil nation in five years an OSH officer from Guyana was able to go visit and execute tasks offshore on the FPSO; that is something that has never happened that should be noteworthy to this country and that will be a continuing exercise because we will train more officers,” Hamilton informed.

An FPSO is the Floating Production Storage, and offloading unit used during oil extraction offshore. The MoL continues to emphasise development of its officers to properly monitor the oil and gas sector.

“We will train not only OSH, but labour officers also. It was my intention to have labour officers go when the OSH officer went , but they did not have the requisite training. So, we have to train them to be able to jointly do visits on these FPSOs out there,” Hamilton said.

Aside from developing its human resources, the ministry is also focused on improving its policies and governing legislation. Since assuming office in 2020, Minister Hamilton has continually iterated the insufficiency and archaic nature of Guyana’s existing labour laws.

On this issue, Minister Hamilton shared that the ministry has already completed and sent to the Attorney General’s Chambers its recommendations for amendments to strengthen the various labour laws.

“We have had a meeting about six to eight weeks ago and coming out of that meeting, we have a joint legal committee established that will review all the recommendations that we have put before the AG for advice. The drafting committee will now put those recommendations in legal language,” he said

He further explained that: “After the bill is drafted, we will have a national consultation. We will also upload that for public scrutiny and review of the recommendations and amendments. Hopefully, all of that [can] happen before the second quarter of 2022.”