Muscat: Oil and Gas employees do 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 in projects and taking yearly holidays.

Today, 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 forces companies to re-hire Omanis after large projects, 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 as during the project. This leads to companies in the Oil and Gas Sector being forced to keep project workers, giving different employees different salaries because of the projects."

This is particularly important for Oil and Gas because of its high Omanisation rates, which reaches 85% 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.

The issue, Al Mandhari believes, is that internal oil and gas regulations should be excluded from current Labour Law regulation and be put into their own lists.

Al Mandhari said, "Labour laws made sense in the 70's and 80's 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 a 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 Labur 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 today morning, with the presence of H. E Qais bin Mohammed Al Yusuf, Chairman of The Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

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