Officials of the RUSAL-run Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI) were yesterday accused of hiring employees on a contractual basis in order to deny the country of funds usually paid under the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) schemes.
“To ask the employees to pay that, they won’t pay it and you would be denying the coffers and if you are a responsible company, as a foreign company…this is not acceptable. The reason for calling them contract worker is to circumvent the law. So this contract thing can’t work,” Chief Labour Officer (CLO) Charles Ogle said.
After receiving more than 30 complaints of labour infractions from workers at the BCGI during a visit to the company’s mines last week, Minister of Social Protection Volda Lawrence, Junior Minister Keith Scott and other ministry officials yesterday met with representatives from the company in an effort to resolve the issues raised.
Among the complaints from workers were the poor ventilation of the 40ft container that was being used as a lunch room, the overtime hours that workers are subjected to, the poor lighting system for night work and the lack of union representation.
The workers also complained of NIS contributions and PAYE taxes not being paid for contract workers but the company pointed out that they are supposed to make the payments themselves as a condition of their contract.
Advisor to the Ministry Francis Carryl stated that based on his perusal of a preliminary copy of the Contract for Service given to him, it seemed to be more a contract of a permanent employee. “What we have to be careful about is whether or not this person is a contract worker, self-employed worker or they are really full employees operating under a guise of being contract workers so as to avoid the payment of these obligations. Therefore, we would very much like to see a copy of the contract or the employment document that these people sign, making them contract workers, so that we can be able to determine the true status of their nature of employment,” he said.
“Going forward from that, we will determine who is to pay the NIS and the PAYE because at the end of the day, if the employee is injured, he is left exposed and that is not what we want. So, we are strongly requesting a copy of the employment document,” Carryl said.
Management promised to provide this as early as possible. Although workers complained that they were employed on fixed term contracts for period ranging from one to three months, the company said such contracts apply to temporary contractors who are engaged for a specific task.
30-minute lunch break
At one point, a heated debate ensued between the officials from the company and the representatives from the ministry on the issue of a 30-minute lunch period, with the company justifying this saying that “it is not illegal.”
It was further noted by the company that 12-hour shift is from 6 to 6, with employees being paid for eight hours at their regular rate and for the remaining four hours at a rate of time and a half. As a result, it argued that workers were being paid for their half an hour lunch break.
According to Minister Lawrence, those workers who complained about this situation were threatened and often times reprimanded. Since no resolution could be reached on this complaint, Ogle agreed to “write” on this matter.
Additionally, the workers had also complained to the team that those who were injured on the job were taken to Dr Balwant Singh’s Hospital and the cost was deducted from their salaries.
“If an employee gets injured on the job the company takes him to one of the best hospitals in the country because we care for the situation. He is given the best care. What the company does is pay that bill up front and when the employee receives his NIS, GTM pay then that is refunded to the company,” Senior Safety Officer Linden Prince said.
Regarding monies being deducted, Prince said that it might have been an oversight and therefore the employee “was refunded or it is in the process of being refunded.”
Lawrence at this point queried whether it was the worker’s or the company’s choice. “By whose choice? Does the worker have a choice to say I want to go to Mackenzie Hospital?” she asked.
Prince argued that in most instances the workers state that they do not want to go to a public hospital. Lawrence questioned whether this was a policy of the company. “Is that written somewhere? Because let me tell you almost all of your workers who spoke with me were bemoaning the fact that they are given these large bills at the end and monies are being deducted out of their salaries,” she noted.
“We are hearing that the company wants to provide the best. At the end of the day, the workers are saying that you take us to these hospitals and deduct the numbers from the salaries,” Lawrence argued.
Scott at this point said that very few workers would want to go to Dr Balwant Singh’s Hospital. “That is for people who gat money, not for workers. If you have an arrangement at Balwant, it must not be at the expense of the workers,” he argued.
The company eventually resolved to hold a meeting with the ministry officials, the workers and the insurance company in order to have a collective agreement made on where the workers choose to seek medical attention.
Additionally, the company also resolved to establish its Occupational Health and Safety Committee by August 31, when it will hold its first meeting. There were also complaints of poor quality food being delivered to the junior staff. Lawrence argued that the presentation “did not look fit for human consumption… It look as though somebody just dip out this thing and dash it in the box.” She added that it was a matter that management should look into.
In some instances, the workers complained that if they exceeded a certain number of days on sick leave, the company deems them medically unfit. To this end, the company resolved to have a medical panel or board put in place to determine whether workers who are off the job for an extended period of time are fit to return to work or are to be dismissed from the job.
Workers also complained that they have made an overwhelming appeal for union representation but this was not adhered to by the company. However, this complaint was not mentioned at the meeting yesterday and a source told this newspaper that they were told that the union was not to be present at this meeting. In their written response to the complaint, however, the bauxite company said that, “management was never approached by employees for union representation.”
In a release on Tuesday, the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU) argued that the “continued engagements with BCGI by the Ministry in the absence of complying with the 2012 High Court’s ruling to reissue letters for the commencement of arbitration signals Government complicity with a foreign management to disrespect the nation’s judiciary, laws and rights of Guyanese labour.”
The union also accused the Government of timing the meeting in order to coincide with the People’s National Congress Reform’s Congress scheduled for this weekend. “It is the view of some, including aggrieved workers that Government has timed the BCGI meeting in order to come out and make bold statements in an effort to influence support and votes for certain candidates at the PNCR Delegates Conference scheduled for this weekend,” the statement added.
