adminKAMPALA, Uganda — Workers with the Tanzania Zambia Railway Company have agreed to end their strike action over a pay dispute, ending a two-week standoff that has blocked copper exports from landlocked Zambia, Africa’s second largest producer of the metal, officials said yesterday.
Tazara spokesman Conrad K Simuchile said in a statement that workers began reporting for work from Tuesday after a court ruling a day before by Tanzania’s labour court that declared the strike illegal.
The end of the strike action comes as a huge relief for copper mining companies in Zambia, who have been stuck with stockpiles of minerals destined for overseas markets.
“Tazara takes this opportunity to announce the resumption of cross-border operations between Zambia and Tanzania,” Simuchile said.
“Freight operations have already commenced, but cross-border passenger services will only resume on Friday, May 30, 2014.”
Union officials couldn’t be reached for an immediate comment.
The workers went on strike on May 12, demanding unpaid wages of several months. The strike action compelled Tazara, which operates the only railway route linking the vast copper and cobalt mines in northern Zambia to Tanzania’s port city of Dar es Salaam, to halt all passenger and freight operations.
The strike action is the latest disruption to hit the ageing railway facility. Tazara was financed and constructed by China in the 1970s but has since suffered years of neglect rendering it unreliable. The 1,860-kilometre line is jointly owned by the Tanzanian and Zambian governments. — Wall Street Journal.
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