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Farirai Machivenyika Harare Bureau
DEBATE on the much-awaited Labour Amendment Bill, which seeks to repeal common law provisions that have been used by employers to fire workers on three months’ notice will start in Parliament today, as analysts expressed mixed feelings about the Bill.
Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Prisca Mupfumira will present the Bill in the National Assembly to deal with the mass sackings of employees following a Supreme Court ruling on July 17 allowing employers to give them three months’ notice.
Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe chief executive officer John Mufukare said they would meet today to come up with a position on the Bill.
“Business is holding a meeting tomorrow (today) to come up with a reaction to Labour Amendment Bill HB 7 of 2015,” he said. “We did, however, a thorough assessment of the Bill and came up with our proposals, but it doesn’t appear that any of the recommendations we made were taken on board.”
Mufukare said that most companies would not be able to afford paying compensation to the dismissed workers as provided for by the Bill. “We would like to point out that many enterprises virtually started afresh with dollarisation in 2009 and therefore adding obligations incurred during the Zimbabwe dollar era will only cause the collapse of those that were teetering on the edge.”
But lawyer and International Socialist Organisation general coordinator Munyaradzi Gwisai said the Bill would worsen the plight of workers.
Writing on his Facebook wall yesterday, he said more jobs would be lost because of the provisions of the Bill.
“The Labour Amendment Bill, 2015 gazetted on Friday August 14, 2015, is a deceptive, dangerous and neo-liberal legislation that will escalate the loss of jobs by workers, not just for today but well into the future,” he said.
“The supposed reprieve it gives the 20,000 dismissed workers is cosmetic. They will now get a retrenchment package, but only of two weeks’ salary for every year of service. This means a worker of six years service will only get three months’ salary. So, what is the difference with what the Supreme Court ruled in Nyamande and Donga vs Zuva Petroleum (Pvt) Ltd?
“Whereas currently, where workers and employers disagreed in the Works Council, the dispute was referred to the Retrenchment Board. The Board on average gave a retrenchment package of one to two months’ salary as service pay; plus three to six months as severance pay; plus one month salary as relocation allowance.
“The first version of the Bill had provided that Works Councils and Employment Councils were to prescribe standard retrenchment packages. But this has been removed under HB7 of 2015, which states that in case of disagreement, all the employer has to pay is service pay of two weeks for every year of service, but no severance pay or relocation allowance.”
Prominent labour lawyer Caleb Mucheche disputed that the Bill would negatively affect workers, saying it protected both the employer and employees’ interests.
“The common law right of employers to unilaterally terminate contract of employment has been abolished under Section 12 of the Bill,” he said.
“The catch is why would the legislation be backdated to July 17 (when the Supreme Court made the common law ruling?) The net effect is that it overrides the Supreme Court ruling and brings relief to the workers who were affected so that on top of the three months’ notice salary they also get the minimum package as prescribed in Section 12 (c) (ii) of the Bill.”
Mucheche said employers were also protected by having a minimum retrenchment package, arguing that in the past, workers were getting higher packages than what is prescribed in the Bill.
Online Reporter