Guyoil workers strike for year-end bonus, salary increase

Dec 24, 2020 News

Scenes from the Guyoil Sherriff Street Gas Station yesterday.

Kaieteur News – Supervisors and station managers of the Guyana Oil Company (Guyoil) were forced to sell at the gas station pumps yesterday after a number of its workers decided to strike.
Strike action was taken after the management of Guyoil failed to arrive at an agreement with the Clerical and Commercial Workers Union (CCWU) to pay its workers Christmas bonuses and a salary increase of eight percent.
Yesterday at the Sheriff Street branch of the Guyoil Gas Station, a number of pump attendants were seen at the side of the road with placards in their hands demanding their bonuses.
The station manager and a few supervisors who would normally work in the gas station’s office were seen outside attending to the pumps as vehicles made long lines to fill their tanks.
Other Guyoil Gas Stations on the East Coast and East Bank of Demerara were completely shut down as workers attached to those branches joined in the strike.
Kaieteur News was told that that move caused a bit of panic in the early morning hours as motor vehicles had to buy petrol from other competitors.
However, instead of seeking to negotiate with its workers, Kaieteur News was told that Guyoil threatened to fire them instead.
Sources told this media house that the Human Resource Manager of the company showed up at one of the Gas Stations on the East Coast and began making threats. He reportedly told the workers that ‘if they do not work, they will be fired and Guyoil will replace them with other persons who have pending applications with the company”.
The workers of that branch, Kaieteur News was told, became afraid and halted their strike immediately; however, this did not deter workers, especially the pump attendants, from the branches.
State owned newspaper, the Guyana Chronicle reported on Tuesday that 400 Guyoil employees were threatening to take industrial action in light of the company’s refusal to honour an agreement for salary increases in 2020.
CCWU’s president, Sherwood Clarke, was quoted as saying that the previous board company had agreed to pay salary increases based on a performance-appraisal system.
However, a new board was installed by the current administration and that board pulled out from the agreement.
Workers of the company who spoke with Kaieteur News yesterday said that Guyoil had recently declared a $1B profit in its annual report. This profit, they argued, means that even if there is a new company board, they are still entitled to a salary increase and Christmas bonuses.

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