Business / Companies
Zimpapers fails to pay workers
06 Jan 2012 at 05:20hrs | Views
ALL is not well at the Zimbabwe Newspapers (Pvt) (Ltd) as the company has reportedly failed to pay its Bulawayo branch workers who include journalists their December salaries.
Zimpapers CEO Justine Mutasa could not be reached for comment.
Last Friday, a memo from the Human Resources Department was distributed by the workers committee within the Chronicle newsroom announcing that the form can no-long afford to pay correspondents.
This was after a group of workers had asked its representatives to go and plead with management to give them US$100 handouts as "living fee" to take them up to January 10, the set date for payments.
The move affected three correspondents at the Chronicle. Surprisingly B Metro, Sunday News and Umthunywa correspondents were spared the chop.
A source within the management said the company's financial woes are as a result of its failure to generate income from sales and advertising.
The source added that journalists at the Herald and Sunday Mail are paid more because they write better and their publications get better advertising.
However, journalists at the Zimpapers Byo chapter argued that the whole "quality writing story " was untrue because their editors are rigid, inflexible, less creative and fear publishing certain stories that see the light of the day in Harare publications.
Further, they argued that the problem with Zimpapers Byo branch management is that every time there is down sizing, it affects the editorial department and not any other department.
They said, the company was mum about gross fraud that has taken place within the accounts department and instead wasted a lot of time focusing on trivialities like allowances of correspondents who are paid between US$7-10 per story.
We will publish the story about the fraud TODAY…
Zimpapers CEO Justine Mutasa could not be reached for comment.
Last Friday, a memo from the Human Resources Department was distributed by the workers committee within the Chronicle newsroom announcing that the form can no-long afford to pay correspondents.
This was after a group of workers had asked its representatives to go and plead with management to give them US$100 handouts as "living fee" to take them up to January 10, the set date for payments.
The move affected three correspondents at the Chronicle. Surprisingly B Metro, Sunday News and Umthunywa correspondents were spared the chop.
A source within the management said the company's financial woes are as a result of its failure to generate income from sales and advertising.
The source added that journalists at the Herald and Sunday Mail are paid more because they write better and their publications get better advertising.
However, journalists at the Zimpapers Byo chapter argued that the whole "quality writing story " was untrue because their editors are rigid, inflexible, less creative and fear publishing certain stories that see the light of the day in Harare publications.
Further, they argued that the problem with Zimpapers Byo branch management is that every time there is down sizing, it affects the editorial department and not any other department.
They said, the company was mum about gross fraud that has taken place within the accounts department and instead wasted a lot of time focusing on trivialities like allowances of correspondents who are paid between US$7-10 per story.
We will publish the story about the fraud TODAY…
Source - Byo24News
