Cottco retrenchment illegal, says court

retrenched last year, appealled against an arbitration ruling by Mr George Nasho Wilson that upheld their retrenchment.
Cottco retrenched 62 workers in June last year.

Of these only 32 managed to seek recourse through the Labour Court and were represented by Mr Rodgers Matsikidze.
The declaration of the wholesale retrenchment as being illegal means that the other 30 workers who did not appeal should also be reinstated.
The retrenchment saga started on May 11, 2010 when Cottco wrote to its Works Council giving notice of its intention to embark on a retrenchment exercise.

On May 17, 2010 Cottco then wrote to the employees nominated for retrenchment advising them and that pending the deliberations, they were not supposed to report for duty. A retrenchment committee was established made up of members of the workers’ committee, a senior member of a trade union and the management representatives.

The committee deliberated on the retrenchment and agreed on the terms.
The retrenchment was approved on June 8, 2010.
Of the affected workers, 32 wrote to the managing director of the company advising that they did not want to be represented by workers’ committee members.

The retrenched workers were subsequently paid their packages.
The workers told management that the retrenchment package was going to be treated as advance salaries, a position that was disputed by the company.

The matter was eventually brought to a labour officer who issued a certificate of no settlement.
The labour officer then took the matter to independent arbitrator, Mr George Wilson Nasho, who declared that Cottco had followed the proper procedure in retrenching the employees.

Aggrieved by the ruling, the workers then appealed to the Labour Court.
Labour Court president Ms Betty Chidziva set aside the arbitration award and declared the retrenchment illegal.

Cottco was ordered to reinstate all the retrenched employees with effect from the unlawful retrenchment date.