– recruitment agency told it must honour the law
The GAWU’s Oil and Gas Branch was recently contacted by the employees of a well-known and very popular recruitment agency in the 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. Such a requirement, however, is contrary to the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act. The law obligates employers to provide their employees with appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE). The recruitment agency, the Union understands, told some workers who did not have boots that same could be purchased by the agency. However, the cost would be recovered through deductions from their salaries. Again, this flies in the face of the OSH Act.
After engaging the workers, the Union wrote the Ministry of Labour drawing to their attention what was prevailing. The Ministry, we learnt, engaged the recruitment agency, and informed that it 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.
The workers have since contacted the GAWU to inform that the agency told them they would now be provided with safety boots at no cost to them. Expectedly they would receive same soon. They also shared with the Union that the principals of the agency informed them that they ought to have handled the matter differently as the foreign client was upset. 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, in our view, to disrespect to the Guyanese workers. It is disappointing that a matter as straight forward as this had to require the involvement of the Ministry of Labour before it could have been resolved. Of course, 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. 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 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.
The entire episode brings into focus the advice being provided by locals to foreign oil companies. We have to wonder whether these ‘professionals’ are really knowledgeable or is it a case of them knowingly cheating and deceiving workers out of their rights. Certainly, whatever is the case it is disturbing and disheartening. While we welcome the Ministry’s forthright intervention, at the same time we recognize not all workers may not have access to the Ministry and they maybe some who are unaware that their rights are violated and they are victims of exploitation at the workplace.
