RTG joins firing spree

Pamela Shumba Senior Reporter
RAINBOW Tourism Group (RTG) yesterday showed scores of its workers the exit door, as the organisation joins the worker firing spree that was triggered by a recent Supreme Court ruling.

Rainbow Hotel general manager Fungai Mutseyekwa confirmed the development yesterday but declined to give further details, referring questions to the group corporate communications officer, Pride Khumbula who, however, refused to comment.

She said: “No comment. Rainbow Tourism Group has no comment.”

Affected employees at Bulawayo Rainbow Hotel confirmed receiving termination of contract letters.

A copy of the letters was shown to The Chronicle.

“We would like to advise you that we’re terminating your contract of employment with RTG by way of notice as provided for in the Labour Act. The termination takes effect today August 4, 2015, and you shall be paid cash-in-lieu of the mandatory three months notice period based on your basic salary.

“Your last working day at Bulawayo Rainbow Hotel shall therefore be today August 4, 2015,” read one of the letters.

The employees were told that they would also be given their transport and housing allowances for three months as well as medical aid and funeral cover for three months.

“Apart from the above named payments, you shall also be paid for the following; three months transport allowance, three months housing allowance, gratuity equivalent to your one month basic salary and cash-in-lieu of annual days accrued up to October 31, 2015. You shall also receive funeral and medical aid cover up to October 31, 2015,” the letter continued.

The Supreme Court ruling allows employers to terminate employees’ contracts by simply giving three months’ notice without the option of retrenchment packages. The job cuts have caused uncertainty among the country’s working class with trade unions condemning both private companies and public entities over the dismissals. More than 16,000 workers, both in the private sector and parastatals, have lost their jobs within a space of two weeks as employers capitalise on the court ruling to offload their excessive workforce.

More than 10 companies, either headquartered or with branches in Bulawayo have over the past weeks sacked employees using the Supreme Court ruling applied on two Zuva Petroleum managers.

Last week the government ordered the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) to start retrenching its workers and by Friday the parastatal had written letters of termination of contract to 500 workers.

Air Zimbabwe, CMED, Zimbabwe Grain Bag, Apollo Tyres Zimbabwe Farm and City and Meikles are some of the companies that dismissed employees last week.

Other companies include Monarch and many others that are affiliates of Econet Zimbabwe.

Some of the Econet Zimbabwe subsidiaries that have retrenched include Econet, TN Harlequin and TN Asset Management.