Thursday 14 / November / 2024
Muscat: Oil and gas employees should not come under the same labour laws as everyone else, according to Musallam Al Mandhary, CEO of the Oman Society for Petroleum Services, especially when it comes to re-hiring Omanis for projects and taking yearly holidays, as well as making the 3 per cent yearly pay raise for employees optional.
On Tuesday, Al Mandhari said, “We are calling for a separate list for these employees, with their own regulations that act as exceptions to the Labour Law.”
According to Al Mandhari, there are Articles in the Labour Law that cannot be easily applied to the Oil and Gas Sector, including Article 48 repeated which compels companies to transfer Omanis after large projects, while keeping their benefits and salaries, and Article 65 which provides national holidays. The oil and gas sector currently gives two Eid holidays, added to a system of 15 days working and 13 days off, adding up to 155 work days per year post 2011 compared to 231 days per year, which was the case before 2011.
He said, “Article 48 repeated states that companies should adhere to hiring the same Omanis who worked on a specific project with the same bonuses and salaries they received during the project. This leads to companies in the oil and gas sector being forced to keep project workers’ pays after the projects are completed, giving different employees different salaries because of previous projects.”
High Omanisation rate
This is particularly important for oil and gas because of its high Omanisation rates, which reach 85 per cent in oil rigs. He believes the law places too much pressure on companies to bring Omanis in after large projects and leads to different salaries for different employees, based on their previous projects.
Said Al Mahrouqi, President of the Oil and Gas Workers Union, rejected the implications of some of these proposals when speaking to Times of Oman. According to him, companies working in Oman should adhere to the requirements in a way that serves employees.
He said, “The proposed changes imply that companies would be able to hire Omanis for a project, then reduce their salaries and bonuses when the project is completed. As for the 3 per cent yearly raise, they want to make it optional and based on a worker’s performance. We reject both of these proposals.”
“If you are a company working in Oman, then you knew about these laws beforehand,” he said, adding, “And you should keep the employees that you hired without lowering their pay, even when transferred.”
However, Al Mandhari believes that internal oil and gas regulations should be excluded from the current Labour Law regulation and be put into their own lists.
He said, “Labour laws made sense in the 70s and 80s because there were very few oil and gas exceptions. Nowadays, however, the sector has expanded. We made changes after 2011, including new holiday schemes and an OMR90 increase in basic salaries. After two years of that, unions began to point out that our regulations do not work in tandem with the current Labour Law.
“We call for separate regulations for our sector, added to a framework for when work is halted on projects, as well as finding a way to fit our regulations and Article 48 of the Labour Law together, creating a committee for handling demobilising or laying off workers from projects after they end, including temporary projects. What would we do with hundreds of workers who came for a specific project?” he asked. “The sector cannot be stuck with them. Finally, we should find a way to implement yearly salary increases in a comprehensive manner.”
This came during the First Annual Labour Forum For Enhancement of Work Environment - Oil and Gas, which took place at the Crowne Plaza in Muscat Tuesday morning, in the presence of Qais bin Mohammed Al Yusuf, Chairman of the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
