Business / Companies
Hwange Colliery suspends over 500 workers over salary dispute
10 Apr 2013 at 22:38hrs | Views
Hwange Colliery Company is alleged to have suspended 525 workers following a salary dispute, among other issues.
The employees are accusing management of unfairly dismissing five workers, threatening them and failure to pay them salaries for two months.
The grievances that led to the dispute came to light at a Zanu PF rally held in Hwange, where a senior party member was requested to read a letter that had been written by the workers union to Mines and Mining Development Minister Obert Mpofu, highlighting their problems and inviting him to address the matter.
The workers accused management of misappropriation of funds, non remittance of statutory deductions and failure to issue share certificates since 2007.
They further alleged that the second biggest shareholder after the government, Mr. Nicholas Van Hoogstraten, is blocking the issuance of shares as the transactions were done before the introduction of multi-currency regime.
Minister Mpofu castigated the decision to dismiss five workers and suspend the 525 others. He assured the workers that the Board will meet with management soon to resolve the issue of outstanding salaries.
During the same rally, National Railways of Zimbabwe employees also told Dr Mpofu that they have not been paid for eight months and requested him to take the matter to the Minister of Transport, Communication and Infrastructure Development, Nicholas Goche.
The employees are accusing management of unfairly dismissing five workers, threatening them and failure to pay them salaries for two months.
The grievances that led to the dispute came to light at a Zanu PF rally held in Hwange, where a senior party member was requested to read a letter that had been written by the workers union to Mines and Mining Development Minister Obert Mpofu, highlighting their problems and inviting him to address the matter.
They further alleged that the second biggest shareholder after the government, Mr. Nicholas Van Hoogstraten, is blocking the issuance of shares as the transactions were done before the introduction of multi-currency regime.
Minister Mpofu castigated the decision to dismiss five workers and suspend the 525 others. He assured the workers that the Board will meet with management soon to resolve the issue of outstanding salaries.
During the same rally, National Railways of Zimbabwe employees also told Dr Mpofu that they have not been paid for eight months and requested him to take the matter to the Minister of Transport, Communication and Infrastructure Development, Nicholas Goche.
Source - Zimdiaspora
