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18 October, 2010
Proposed amendments to Zimbabwe’s Labour Relations Act have rattled the country’s employers’ grouping, but the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) is having none of it. Bosses’ hue and cry over fairness changes to the labour code doesn’t add up, union leaders say.
The controversy is over ILO draft recommendations regarding severance packages, contract workers’ rights, and other common social entitlements. The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CFI) met the press in the southern African nation on 11 October, and told them the changes would be burdensome and costly.
ZCTU President Lovemore Matombo countered by saying enterprises covered by the CFI have been paying the lowest wages in southern Africa for a long time. “Those who are against this idea are people who have gotten used to profiteering,” Matombo told the Harare Herald.
ZCTU President Lovemore Matombo
The ILO’s review of Zimbabwe’s labour law recommends establishment of a minimum set of retrenchment criteria, including education and re-training, and includes severance benefits and other social rights for contract workers, as long as they were on the job for three years. The CFI said severance payments to contract workers would not be sustainable for businesses to survive.
The recommendations include a number of fair-minded social improvements, including paid sick leave, and specifically, revising maximum vacation leave from 30 calendar days to 30 work days. An amendment also calls for daily breast-feeding by working women to be increases from one to two hours for up to18 months.
At the 11 October press briefing, the CFI said the revisions would stifle enterprise and said Zimbabwe’s workers must “accept the concept of delayed gratification.” The CFI argued that business is not just about paying workers, but also earning dividends.
The ICEM supports the progressive social amendments being introduced in Zimbabwe, and stands with the ZCTU and its own affiliates.