The Guyana Agriculture and General Workers Union (GAWU) is accusing of one of the companies involved in the oil and gas sector of giving its foreign workers a raise in pay, while ignoring local workers.

While not naming the company, GAWU said the pay increase was approved against the backdrop that the cost of living has increased.

“Undoubtedly it was against that background that a well-known foreign-owned oil sector company decided to improve pay rates for its employees. Dismayingly, the GAWU Oil and Gas Branch was informed that the increases were only approved for that company’s expatriate staffers. The locals, on the other hand, who comprise a significant proportion of the workforce were excluded from that company’s consideration,” GAWU said in a statement.

GAWU said Guyanese employees informed the Union that they are at a loss for their exclusion.

“They shared with us that their foreign colleagues earn substantially more than them but inexplicably their salaries were insufficient thus necessitating the pay rise. The workers were perplexed that if it was that the foreigners were receiving inadequate pay it did not take any serious examination to understand their situation,” GAWU said.

This is not the first time that GAWU is raising concerns of inequality and the problems and difficulties local employees are facing in the oil and gas sector.

Back in January, the union complained that Guyanese workers were being treated as second-class citizens in their own country after workers complained bitterly about not being afforded the same benefits as their foreign counterparts.

At the time, GAWU said workers painted a grim picture of their situation on the worksite while on the other hands their foreign colleagues are treated differently.

On the matter of the pay rise GAWU said workers related to the union that there were talks that locals do not deserve a pay increase at this time.

“They said from what they learned their foreign bosses felt that their earnings were more than adequate, and a pay rise would represent essentially a favour. The workers told GAWU they were simply appalled that their employer would engage in such demeaning thoughts. Some employees who have been there for several years to date have not received any rise in pay despite continuing to perform credibly,” the union noted.

GAWU said the situation represents yet another assault on Guyanese workers in the oil sector and further illustrates the need for the sector to be organized. 

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