Showdown looms at Innscor

service stations and ran fast foods shops under one of its most popular trademarks, Chicken Inn, at four Total service stations in Harare under a marketing agreement which expired in December last year.
Innscor had indicated the workers would be transferred to the new franchise holders after the expiry of the agreement in December.
The fast foods and retail conglomerate wanted to transfer 26 workers at the four franchised Total service stations to new dealers who have since taken over the running of the outlets.
The fast foods conglomerate wrote to the workers on January 28, 2012 indicating they would be transferred without any changes to their conditions of service in line with labour laws.
The company had also advised the workers that the workers’ statutory contributions would remain intact and remitted to relevant bodies.
But the workers quickly dismissed the transfer proposal saying there was no such agreement with the new franchise holders and that is if they were to be transferred they should be given their terminal benefits first.
Innscor Africa corporate affairs director Mr Musekiwa Kumbula declined to comment on the fate of the workers.
But the managing director of Innscor Fast Foods Harare, which includes the service stations, Mr Givemore Munyani, said that the company was making efforts to absorb the affected workers.
However, he said that the workers were pressing management for retrenchment packages yet the company still wanted them in its employ.
“As we speak, the workers are now appreciating our efforts. We have told them to go on leave pending their integration when they return. We told them they remain our workers, but they were pressing management for packages to leave the firm,” he said.
Innscor is predominantly a fast foods and retail business while most of the affected workers were employed as fuel attendants.
However, while Innscor proposed the transfer of the workers to Total Zimbabwe it had not paid the service benefits.
Innscor later made an about turn after it emerged that the new franchise holders had already engaged new workers and could not continue with workers who had not been paid their benefits.
The fast foods firm advised the affected workers to go on leave pending their integration into other areas of the company’s operations.