adminLabour Column Davies Ndumiso Sibanda
THE problem of delayed wages and salaries seems to be worsening with no durable solution in sight. In most cases this leaves the employees and employers tearing into each other resulting in a worse situation as the few remaining customers taking flight to seek more reliable service providers further weakening the economy.
I believe the starting point is for the nation to accept that the problem of delayed wages has reached a crisis level as many private sector organisations, parastatals and local authorities have wages related debts that are beyond their capacity to pay.
The next stage is to recognise that all existing labour relations and economy management arms of government have no capacity to deal with delayed wages.
Once that reality is accepted an institution to deal with the wages and salaries national crisis has to be created where the government, labour and employers will honestly deal with the causes of salary arrears in a manner that stabilises the economy.
The tripartite negotiating forum as it stands has no capacity to deal with the problem. Some people have suggested a cabinet committee, others have said the problem be given to National Employment Councils to solve, yet others have said more powers be given to labour officers to deal with employers who are not paying.
The challenge is that the money to pay workers does not fall from trees but has to be worked for and at the present moment we have workers who want to work and employers who want to work but the enabling environment does not exist and that is the problem we need to deal with.
The big question is what would happen if all the workers owed salaries litigated and got employers’ property attached and sold to pay workers. I am of the view that legally workers have the right to do that but they are aware of the negative effects of litigation as that will accelerate closure of the businesses. In the circumstances, they will lose the little they were getting. As a result most workers continue to push for payment, balancing it with careful litigation.
We need a committee or body that will come up with tangible solutions that are implemented forthwith. Where our economy stands, retrenching workers, putting workers on measures to avoid retrenchment seeking wage exemptions, cutting salaries are all desperate measures that are unlikely to save businesses on a downward spiral.
There is much hope that labour law reform will be a solution for all our labour relations problems. Such thinking is misplaced as liberal labour laws that are investor friendly can only support economic growth where the economy is already on a growth path and at any rate liberal labour laws tend to create conflict with unions as some of their rights get trampled upon.
For these and other related reasons I believe the answer to the present wage challenges is beyond individual employers and application of labour laws but calls for the nation to come together and get the economic fundamentals right so as to re-start the economy and start generating revenue to pay workers.
Until then, wage arrears will continue to grow in organisations and litigation is going to increase.
It must be borne in mind that businesses do not want to trade with organisations that have wage and salary arrears as they are classified as a high risk in many ways thus most businesses with publicised wage arrears struggle to retain or attract customers.
Davies Ndumiso Sibanda can be contacted on [email protected] or 0772 375 235
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