Issues of overtime payment and being “handed over” to a contracted company were among the concerns highlighted to Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton, by local employees of Zijin Mining, the new owners of Aurora Gold Mines (AGM).
Hamilton along with a delegation from his ministry visited the mines yesterday to gain a firsthand understanding of working conditions and operations at the mines.
“I recommended urgent mechanisms to be implemented to iron out grievances between workers and management. Management conceded to the recommendations and promised to have them implemented by the end of January next year,” Hamilton said.
Speaking to this newspaper yesterday, he related that he was able to meet and engage with staff members uninterrupted by management.
“The prominent issues that came out were overtime payment, their temporary contracts, and long assignments…” the minister said.
According to Hamilton there is some miscommunication with regard to overtime payment. Workers are made to work 12 hours, but their payments do not reflect overtime.
“Our law says anything over 8 hours is time and a half, and holidays and Sundays are double, but there seems to be some miscalculation or miscommunication because employees said it don’t add up. So this is an issue we have talked to them about but it seems as if they adopted that payment methodology that was here before the company changed over,” the minister explained.
He also made it clear that no expatriate should be paid more than a local worker for doing the same job.
Equal pay
“There must be equal pay for equal work. No expatriate should work [for] 5 times or 10 times more than a local worker… I will not tolerate expatriates coming and working and they are paid more than Guyanese who are doing the same job,” declared the Labour Minister.
AGM Director of Corporate Office, Compliance, and Government Relations, Peter Benny, told Stabroek News yesterday that their payment scale is in line with the law. He noted that the company has never received any complaints from employees on their overtime payment.
“We don’t work 40 hours here… we work 12 hours a day and 28 days straight, 14 days off. After eight hours, employees are paid time and a half, Monday to Friday. On Saturday, they are paid time and a half and Sunday they are paid double and holidays and even employees who are home on their turn around and it’s a holiday they get eight hours pay. And they all pay taxes on every dollar, we are not like bauxite workers who have tax free overtime,” Benny explained.
The Minister said too that he registered his concern to management over the fact that they were preparing to transfer staff to a contracted company without any consultation with employees. AGM, was preparing to hand over some 114 employees to fellow Chinese contractor, Sinohydro, after their temporary contracts expired during the course of this month.
Such actions he said should not be tolerated and will not be accepted by his ministry in this day and age.
“For this to happen in 2020 it is obnoxious and we have asked them to immediately address the issue. They said that their letter was badly worded but we want to see it corrected,” Hamilton stressed.
Hand you over
“AGM don’t own nobody, they can’t hand you over… you’re not the property of AGM. Sinohydro is not a sister company, if that was the case it would have been different. This is an entirely new company hired to do stripping work and the labour laws must be followed when it comes to the transfer of employees,” the minister added further.
Touching on this, Benny explained that after the minister aired his concerns, he was informed of the company’s plans and presented with the necessary documentation to prove that the company is following labour laws and industrial relations best practices.
The company spokesman also noted that the employees were consulted and informed of the transition.
“When we decided that we will hand over the stripping and mining operations to Sinohydro. All the employees were informed. AGM met with all the employees and were told that their contract will end after it is expired and they will receive an offer with Sinohydro because the positions in the company have become redundant,” Benny stated.
He noted that the workers – both contracted and permanent, were informed that they will be paid their full benefits. Benny added that some permanent workers have already taken up positions with Sinohydro and are on site working.
Meanwhile, Hamilton said he will like to see more employees as part of the union so that they can be properly represented during negotiations.
Sinohydro, a subsidiary of China’s largest power company, POWERCHINA, is described as a state-owned hydropower, engineering, and construction firm. The company has been expanding their services worldwide. An arm of Sinohydro is currently executing the construction of the IDB-funded Sheriff Street/Mandela Avenue road project. It is unclear if the same arm has been contracted by AGM Inc.
Zijin Mining, had contracted fellow Chinese company Sinohydro to execute stripping works in a bid to accelerate its work plan.
“The company has pushed emphasis early on full resumption of operations. It has not produced any gold since June. The company was looking at production in February/March 2021 but now we are looking to start by the end of this month,” Benny disclosed as he justified the hiring of the company.
He stated that Sinohydro was engaged at the end of October and is working with the company towards the common goal of accelerating stripping works. The company is currently in the process of stripping away the overburden to get to the minable ore.
According to Benny, Sinohydro, equipped with its own workers, has merged its workforce with AGM to advance works. With the stripping works advanced, he said that they should enter into production phase by the end of this month, and if they continue operating at this pace, they will be able to hire a work force of over 600.
