Indian logging company, Vaitarna Holdings has been given three months by Minister of Labour Joseph Hamilton to remedy severe breaches of Occupational Safety & Health laws.
The order was given to company directors following a meeting with Hamilton after a visit to the operations at Wineperu, Bartica, Region Seven.
Unsafe and unsanitary living and working conditions and nonpayment of overtime wages, among other issues, were noted by employees and observed by labour officers, who had accompanied Hamilton.
On Tuesday, Hamilton told Stabroek News that officers will be working with the company to rectify and remedy the issues identified before he makes a follow up visit at the end of June.
Despite the global pandemic with workplaces being forced to implement measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, Hamilton said the company failed to put in place any measure to ensure workers’ safety.
“Employees have been working in the most unsafe conditions at Vaitarna’s concession. We have found no COVID-19 guidelines or measure in place, workers working in as much as four feet of wood shavings and instances of where water and electricity marrying,” the Minister of Labour related. He further related that he was flabbergasted when he heard officials referring to the living quarters of employees as “logies” and families being forced to share a single bedroom.
Additionally, Hamilton said he registered his concern too over the fact that there is no medical facility to treat injuries if suffered on the concession.
“For an operation like this it requires a health post. There is no health facility within the concession and the nearest, which is a government operated one is miles away. That is equipped with a Community Health Worker,” the Minister lamented.
“I have met with the directors and told them they need to do better and improve conditions. These conditions cannot continue to exist,” he stressed, while noting that the directors had no defence for their lackadaisical approach to occupational health and safety.
“I would hope that after our discussions the company puts everything in place to ensure that they follow all the workers’ relations laws and my officers will be returning here by the end of June to follow up… we will work with them to establish a health and safety committee,” Hamilton said in a Department of Public Information report noting that such operations have a greater risk of injury. “We want to avoid those things from happening.”
During his first engagement with the press, Hamilton had warned that workers’ rights will not be trampled upon by international companies operating here.
“We will not allow expatriate or even local companies, we will not allow them to take advantage of the people and that is a fundamental issue. We will utilise the law to ensure that all of these companies respect the law, the constitution and the people,” Hamilton had declared.
