A week after citing what he said was an anti-union clause in the employment agreement of the company, TOTALTEC Oilfield Services Guyana Inc, General Secretary of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) Lincoln Lewis has told the Stabroek Business that the trade union umbrella body will be seeking to express “more detailed sentiments on the matter of the relationship between local employees and foreign employers connected to the oil and gas sector.”
Asserting that he was “somewhat surprised” that “in this day and age” a foreign company seeking to employ Guyanese workers here in Guyana had “so explicitly opted to include what in effect is an anti-union sentiment in its employment contract,” Lewis said that the views that he will express are likely to include a recommendation that firms wishing to work here, in oil and gas or any other area, be briefed on the laws of Guyana and include those that have to do with the workers’ right to be members of unions of their choice.
Asserting that he anticipated that labour would “make enemies” by taking the position that it has taken, Lewis said that he was fully aware that there were “interests” in Guyana that appeared “too preoccupied with what they can get out of the oil and gas operations in Guyana” to bother about the welfare of local workers. “The truth is that the distraction of the potential returns to the local content from the oil and gas sector may well have blinded the eyes of some in the private sector to the importance of worker representation,” Lewis said.
“Labour, of course, wants to be clear on the issue of respect for the investments of foreign companies. Local workers, insofar as they are trained for the jobs they are doing, are under obligation to deliver. At the same time, however, foreign companies operating here in Guyana have an obligation to be mindful of the dictates of our constitution including those that have to do with the rights of workers. This is not a matter on which we should be compromising.”
However Lewis acknowledges that labour cannot do it alone. “Government, the private sector and labour must work together in this regard. We expect that the very public position that we are about to take on the rights and the protection of workers employed by companies connected in one way or another to the oil and gas sector will be shared by government and the private sector. We are doing nothing to interfere with the local operations of those foreign companies operating here. We are simply saying that our workers should be treated right. I cannot accept that both government and the private sector would have any difficulty in accepting that position,” the General Secretary added.
