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7 August, 2006
ICEM affiliate Mineworkers’ Union of Namibia (MUN) stepped in to resolve a strike by workers at a diamond cutting and polishing factory in the southern African country recently.
The strike, by nearly a quarter of the 500-member workforce at a plant operated by Israeli-based Lev Leviev Diamonds, occurred when management again attempted to impose restrictive individual contracts on workers. The activist-leaders shut down the plant in Namibia’s northern industrial zone on 27 July by effectively blocking entrances, and then demanded representation by the MUN.
After listening to workers’ grievances, MUN General Secretary Joseph Hengari began negotiations with the company. The union convinced strikers to reopen the plant on 31 July, and got the company to drop threatened disciplinary actions against strike leaders.
After two years of operation, the plant’s workers still have not been granted permanent status, instead held to 12-month temporary contracts. This round of temporary work agreements were issued in July, with the company demanding a signed return by 31 July. The individual contracts disqualified workers from earning a basic salary unless they reached certain production goals. Commissions would be paid to workers only when work exceeded a daily target of eight stones per day, or 170 diamonds per month.
Hengari said the contracts fail on all counts of basic workers’ rights. He said that no overtime is ever paid, and standard double pay for work performed on Sundays and holidays is ignored. The MUN is awaiting official word from the company that it recognises the union, since nearly all workers have designated MUN as bargaining representative.
Lev Leviev Diamonds is the world’s largest cutter and polisher of precious gems and a major source of rough stones to other cutters. The conglomerate also owns a gold mine in Kazakhstan, two diamond mines in Angola, and a multitude of other global business ventures, stretching from real estate, to petrol stations to Vash Telecanal, Israel’s Russian television station. The company, operated by Lev Leviev, a 1971 immigrant to Israel from the former Soviet Union state of Uzbekistan, has a long history of opaque transactions, particularly in diamond and gem trading.