OPINION: Maltreatment of foreign workers -a growth sector

Last Updated on Saturday, 23 May 2026, 4:49 by Denis Chabrol

By GHK Lall

The migrant in me hurts. This mistreatment of foreigners flocking here for economic opportunity, so that their families can make it, doesn’t sit well. I speak against it. The government should take a close look, be serious about doing something about their plight. Though this same PPP Govt has tried hard to make me into an illegal migrant, the fight inside grows stronger, compels saying a word on behalf of maltreated foreign workers.

I know about minimum wage. Having received it for months almost 50 years ago, I can identify with low paid workers, blue collar toilers squeezed for all that can be extracted from them. From firsthand reports, from the victims themselves, they are collecting less than Guyana’s national minimum wage for a full week’s work. Often, more than the 40-hour standard that prevails. Forget about 37.5 hours a week for some migrants. Think again, because it doesn’t exist. Nor overtime pay for weekends and holidays, when such occurs. I urge fellow Guyanese, none more than fat cat ones, to reflect on the life of more than a few foreign workers in this month of May, where there are four national holidays.

Here’s the first clue. When the passport of a foreign worker is withheld, then that worker is being held hostage, subject to any demanding ransom. What else to think? To where could they abscond? How does that action signal an interest in treating newcomers in the midst fairly and squarely? They can only pay in labor, and the pay that never reach their hands. It is a costly combination, one that’s seemingly fully exploited. I do not like this. Nor is there much patience with, or goodwill for, the Guyanese who exploit foreigners trying to make a new start, hustling to make a living from the bottom rungs of the ladder. There is appreciation that the cost of a plane ticket has to be repaid, but to hold a migrant’s passport is to keep he or she on a short leash. Under control. Able to operate only in a tight circle. Beholden to benefactor who also doubles as an exploiter.

Proceeding further, there is housing that has to be arranged, documents to be obtained (work permit, police permit, among others), and the costs attached to those. For an importer of labor, who doubles as an all-purpose fixer, then as an exploiter, each new migrant in hand represents a sweet pool of income that keeps refilling itself. I seem to be back in the days of Black American sharecroppers in America’s Jim Crow South. Recall how they were ripped off, through one scheme or trick after another. But that was last seen about 60 years ago in the US. This is Oil Guyana and it is the long morn of its splendid Oil Age. How to categorize what’s going on here? Filling a need? Protecting one’s role as arranger and sponsor from being cheated? How? By whom? The language is against them. So, also, the culture and environment. The list of the foreign workforce taken advantage is growing: Indians, Bangladeshis, Cubans, probably Venezuelans, and other foreigners trapped in that net. Now, I encourage Guyanese to put on their thinking caps.

If these kinds of disadvantages (passports seized, hours manipulated, work conditions distressed [and laws violated]) exist for foreign workers with employment and entry permits, then where does that leave the illegal immigrant who sneaked across the borders? Or overstayed his visa? What is he or she working for, $1000 a day? A 10-hour day? I don’t see how it can be otherwise, and is most probably much worse for that category of migrant workers. The Labor folks are investigating. I think the government must be more vigilant, proactive, and attuned to how migrant conditions are in this country. I share this helpful clue: the exploiters are PPP regulars.