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Davies Ndumiso Sibanda
THERE has been an outcry among trade unionists and workers over the treatment of workers by some Chinese employers resulting in bad publicity for all Chinese employers including those doing a good job.
Press reports of Chinese employers beating up workers, denying them wages, underpaying the workers, limiting the time workers visit the toilet, limiting breaks and meal times, subjecting workers to long hours, subjecting workers to unpaid overtime, allegations of bribed trade union representatives or labour officers and NEC designated agents are common stories in relation to Chinese businesses.
Unfortunately, no comprehensive investigation of these allegations has been undertaken to establish the authenticity of the allegations, thus leaving every Chinese employer painted as bad.
The starting point is that there is no smoke without fire. Some of the allegations are likely to be true and what needs to be done is to deal with the real problem related to Chinese employers.
One of the major problems is the conflict between the Chinese business culture and the Zimbabwean business culture. My experience with Chinese businesses has been that their focus is maximising on return on investment and all other things are irrelevant while the Zimbabwean business culture focuses on doing business with a human face.
For example, Zimbabwean businesses would concern themselves with where the workers live, how they are transported to and from work, where and how they get their meals during lunch time and that they have protective clothing and that the working methods are safe.
To a Chinese business, all these do not seem their problem, what they want is the worker pitching up at work and doing the work.
Such an approach obviously leads to conflict with unions who want workers to be treated with a human face and unfortunately, NECs conditions of service are generally not enforced other than the designated agent of the NEC visiting the business and writing a report which goes on file and is the end of the story, thus leaving workers to fight their own battles alone.
It must be emphasised that not all Chinese companies are in this basket.
Some have adapted to the Zimbabwean model of doing business and observe labour laws to the satisfaction of unions and workers.
Another area of conflict has been in discipline and dispute resolution where most Chinese employers have been found on the wrong side of the law due to failure to follow procedures and at times unilaterally dismissing employees or changing conditions of service in breach of collective bargaining agreements.
In conclusion, in my opinion, while we blame the Chinese employers, the fault lies with our foreign investment policy as we need to have legislation that makes it compulsory for all foreign investors to take a programme on Zimbabwean labour relations and labour law before they could do business that would help sanitise the environment and reduce the conflicts that we currently see.
Davies Ndumiso Sibanda can be contacted on: email: [email protected] or cellphone No: 0772 375 235
Online Reporter