As Guyana moves closer to first oil some time during the first quarter of 2020, concerns may be emerging over the issue of the unionisation of workers employed in fields related to the country’s oil and gas sector arising out of what would appear to be documented evidence that foreign companies in the sector may not be disposed to the unionisation of Guyanese workers.
Late last week Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) General Secretary Lincoln Lewis told Stabroek Business that he had been “reliably informed” that Totaltec Oilfield Services Inc, which in its promotional material says it is “committed to identifying opportunities in the oil & gas industry and placing qualified and dedicated Guyanese,” had fired a Guyanese who had refused to sign an employment contract with the company which vetoes union membership for employees “without the prior written consent of the company.” Lewis said that the dismissed employee, having initially declined to sign the contract had subsequently signed it but was dismissed anyway.
Stabroek Business has seen a copy of a Total Oilfield Services Guyana Inc “Employment Agreement” which stipulates, among other things, that employees of the company may not share details of his or her employment contract with any third party “during or after the termination of the employee’s employment contract except insofar as is necessary and proper during the employee’s employment.” This stipulation in the Totaltec contract flies in the face of Cap: 98:07 of the laws of Guyana which states, explicitly that “an employer shall not make the employment of a worker subject to the condition that he shall or shall not become a member of a trade union or shall relinquish his membership of a trade union.”
“Based on what has been happening elsewhere we are not altogether surprised but this is not an issue that we can allow to pass without signalling labour’s concern,” Lewis told Stabroek Business.
This is not a particularly auspicious start for our relationship with the oil and gas sector and I intend to draw the matter to the attention of His Excellency the President,” Lewis told Stabroek Business.
“Our first concern, naturally, is that all of the important institutions in Guyana, political, social, business and safety institutions, act collectively to push back any attempt by foreign companies in the sector to strip their Guyanese workers of the kind of protection that trade unions offer. If they speak on the issue with one voice that is at least a position from which we can begin in terms of rolling back any attempt to outlaw trade unions in the sector,” Lewis said.
Securing unanimity on unionisation in the oil and gas sector is likely to prove difficult, as Lewis admits, “bearing in mind the fact that even in their local dealings with workers, the private sector has traditionally set its face against trade unions in their own companies,” Lewis said. With regard to government, Lewis told Stabroek Business that the country’s labour laws enshrined in the constitution ought to be sufficient to allow government to “comfortably take a public position on the issue of the unionisation of workers in the oil and gas sector, even though we are still going to be looking for a stated position from government and, I might add, from the various political parties on this issue.”
Back in May this year, President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry Nicholas Boyer appeared less than keen to provide a definitive private sector position on the issue of trade unions operating in the oil and gas sector. At the time, a section of the media said the Boyer had described the question on unionisation of workers in the oil and gas sector as a ‘tricky” one even though he acknowledged that there had been concern. “If everything is going well where my countrymen are being paid fully and are not at a disadvantage then I think there is no need for it but if it is not the case, then I would call for collective bargaining…As a Chamber, our role is more dispute resolution over issues relating to equal pay,” Boyer was quoted as saying.
Lewis, however, has dismissed the Chamber President’s response as “vague” noting that it was better to put safeguards in place to protect the workers from exploitation rather than, as Mr. Boyer puts it, to hope that everything goes well. The problem is that leaving oil and gas aside completely, our private sector has a dismal track record on the unionisation of employees The other point, of course, is that there may well be a concern at the level of some businesses that worker representation may affect the returns that they are hoping to rake in from their Local Content pursuits. In the same way that the private sector bodies are bullish on the importance of the returns for local businesses from Local Content pursuits, we also want to see them take a similarly robust stand on the unionisation of workers. To do anything differently would be a glaring double standard,” Lewis added.
The GTUC General Secretary told the Stabroek Business that there is manifest evidence that contract work and the casualization of employment in the oil and gas sector in other countries is impacting negatively on the lives of workers. “Nigeria has been an example of this and I recall some revelations by the IndustriALL Global Union in that country about a year ago. Nigeria, incidentally, is one of those countries where specialised oil and gas unions like the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum & Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) exist and function. We know, for example, based on that Nigeria forum of a year ago that some of the companies involved in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria have popped up here as well. We know too that many of them favour contract workers and that jobs in the sector that were once permanent are now casualized. That is something which the President of the Georgetown Chamber may wish to take note of. We are not attempting to invent the wheel here in Guyana. Specialised trade unions in the oil and gas industry are a reality of life across the world,” Lewis told Stabroek Business.
Meanwhile, Lewis has told Stabroek Business that the focus by the GTUC on the unionisation of local workers employed in oil and gas-related sectors is not an attempt to frighten overseas investors off. “The reality is that while we need the services that they offer to exploit our oil and gas resources we also need to ensure that our people, our workers, not only derive their benefits in the same way that the local businesses involved in Local Content are seeking to do. We also need to ensure that the workers’ health is protected, that their safety is assured and that in instances where anything goes wrong there are mechanisms for resort.”
Meanwhile, Lewis said that he expected that the labour movement would be all in favour of holding both the unions and the workers’ feet to the fire as far as service delivery is concerned. “With regard to the trade unions there is going to have to be training and we need to begin, immediately, in my view, to provide the kind of training to the key people who will be serving labour in the oil and gas industry. We need to begin from the position that this is a new sector for us and that labour needs to be represented by people who are trained and who have some understanding of the sector. The same goes for the workers. In the same way that we will be emphasising the need for training and for agreeable working conditions, we will also be expecting that the work ethic will be consistent with the reasonable expectations of the employer,” Lewis added.
