Sexual abuse rampant in banks, MPs told

Lloyd Gumbo Harare Bureau
THERE is rampant sexual harassment of female workers particularly in the banking sector where managers threaten those who decline their advances with expulsions, parliamentarians heard yesterday.

Representatives from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions who appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, said employers also used the Labour Amendment Act that was passed into law last year to convert workers’ contracts from permanent to one-year fixed contracts.

They said for that reason, employers took advantage of employees by applying the carrot and stick method in order to have their way.

ZCTU vice president Peter Mutasa said female employees were the most affected by the method.

“We now have instances where female employees are now being sexually harassed,” he said.

“You have to choose between being harassed and three months’ notice. If it’s a female-headed household you can guess what the employee will choose. In short, the impact of that amendment is that it eroded all the other pieces of law that seek to protect workers.”

MPs demanded that he corroborate his claims by clearly stating where such abuses were taking place.

“We have done a survey in the banking sector and the figures that are coming from these banks are too high. You hear women testifying that ‘our managers are telling us to book for lodges and hotels using our own money and say call us when you are ready’.

“Managers will be holding a three-months’ termination letter. If you don’t want, you are put on the (termination) list. So people are suffering. Women are suffering much more than men with this amendment. If we don’t protect labour by protecting job security, we are destroying the nationhood of this country which is against our ideals,” said Mutasa.

He said some companies such as the Metropolitan Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Econet Wireless and Steward Bank were abusing employees using the Act.

Mutasa said at MetBank, employees contracts were converted from permanent to fixed term contracts while at Standard Chartered Bank, several workers were retrenched.

“We have companies like Steward Bank and Econet who are using this three months’ notice to coerce employees into accepting a reduction of their salaries by up to 20 percent. But who is Econet and how is it trading?

“Econet has just posted a $40 million profit in this economy as bad as it is. They are saying it’s not enough and they want workers to reduce their salaries by 20 percent. What is the impact of that? We are now transferring incomes from the poor to the rich, which is not good,” said Mutasa.

ZFTU secretary-general Kenias Shamuyarira said while labour, employers and the government met under the banner of the Tripartite Negotiating Forum to deliberate on labour relations, the executive did not take into consideration some of the submissions of the workers.

He said even submissions from Parliament were not taken on board. “Along the way, the legislature was by-passed, the stakeholders in the TNF were by-passed by the so-called executive ministers.

“Five ministers gathered and left out most of the submissions from the ZCTU and the ZFTU. The five ministers were now working on self-interest based on sectoral groups hence they had to leave out all the necessary provisions,” said Shamuyarira.

But appearing before the same committee, Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe senior vice president, Callisto Jokonya, said employers also wanted the Labour Act to be amended to allow business to thrive.

He said in its current form, the Act made it difficult to attract investors and for employers to terminate employees’ contracts even if the company was facing viability challenges.

“There is an urgent need to amend the Labour Act because it has created a stumbling block. It’s making the economy not to move, investors not to invest and employees to feel uncomfortable,” said Jokonya.

He said the requirement that employers pay retrenchment packages was retrogressive as some of the companies retrenched because they did not have money.