Deceiving workers in O&G sector will not be tolerated

–GAWU

CHEATING and deceiving workers out of their rights by local and foreign companies will not be tolerated, under any circumstance, and the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) Oil and Gas Branch will be engaging the Ministry of Labour to ensure the laws are complied with.

In a press statement on Monday, GAWU’s Oil and Gas Branch recalled a recent engagement with a well-known and very popular recruitment agency in the oil-and- gas sector.

“The workers who are assigned to the workshop of a foreign-owned oil and gas enterprise operating in Guyana informed our union that their lawful workplace rights were not being upheld. The workers shared that the recruitment agency, in its contract of employment with the employees, required them to provide their own steel-toe safety boots,” GAWU stated.

The entire episode, GAWU noted, brings into focus the advice being provided by locals to foreign oil companies.

“We have to wonder whether these ‘professionals’ are really knowledgeable. Certainly, whatever is the case, it is disturbing and disheartening. While we welcome the ministry’s forthright intervention, at the same time we recognise not all workers may not have access to the ministry, and they may be some who are unaware that their rights are violated, and they are victims of exploitation at the workplace,” the Union underscored.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act, the Union noted, the law obligates employers to provide their employees with appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

The recruitment agency, the Union noted, told some workers who did not have boots that those footwear could be purchased by the agency, but the cost would have to be recovered by way of deductions from their salaries. Again, this flies in the face of the OSH Act, GAWU said.

After engaging the workers, the Union wrote the Ministry of Labour, drawing the matter to their attention.
The ministry, the Union stated, then engaged the recruitment agency, and informed them that they must be compliant with the Laws of Guyana.

“It is understood that the agency sought to offer feeble and unconvincing rationales for its contractual provisions. Of course, the ministry underlined that the law must be upheld,” GAWU added.

Noting that the agency informed the affected workers that they ought to have handled the matter differently, as the foreign client was upset, GAWU stated, “We, at this time, wonder how differently the matter could have been handled, when the agency had an explicit contractual provision. At the same time, we contend the client had a responsibility to ensure that agent/s acting on their behalf were complaint with the Laws of Guyana.”
The issue of agency employment in the sector is contributing to disrespect to the Guyanese workers, GAWU said.

It is disappointing, the Union noted, that a matter as straightforward as this had to require the involvement of the Ministry of Labour before it could have been resolved.

“Our own review of contracts of employment issued by recruitment agencies have confirmed that many practices Guyanese workers have become accustomed to are simply absent,” GAWU said.

It added: “We have seen, in several contracts, that workers, though entitled to uncertified sick days, cannot benefit from such entitlement unless their employer is satisfied that they are indeed ill. In our view, the employer is basically having the power to tell an employee when they can be ill, and when they are not. With the practice of agency employment, the question as to who really the employer is up in the air, at this point, as those who give the employees direction are not the ones who employed them.”

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