Calls for Stanbic boycott

The Zimbabwe Banks and Allied Workers Union has called for a boycott of Stanbic Bank as it presses ahead with its protracted collective job action against the bank over salaries and benefits dispute.

The remarks come as Zibawu condemned employers' representatives, Bankers Association of Zimbabwe, over its recent pronouncement that the union's industrial action was unjustified and illegal.

Zibawu took exception from statements made by BAZ executive director Mr Sij Biyam that the union was wrongfully targeting an individual bank instead of talking to the banking industry's lobby group, if it had grievances it wanted addressed.

Mr Biyam said that besides the fact that Stanbic paid its workers stipulated salary thresholds, in terms of the 2013 collective bargaining agreement, the dispute was being looked at by courts of law.

The BAZ director said that negotiations at institutional level were a preserve of internal workers committee through the local works council.

The collective job action against Stanbic Bank workers follows demands by workers for a 10 percent salary hike, $200 school fees support per child, 100 percent medical aid cover and free lunch. BAZ said salary scales for 2014 were still under discussion and no impasse had been declared.

The lowest worker earns a gross salary of $627 a month, but Zibawu says after statutory deductions, the workers' salaries were left below poverty datum line and Stanbic did not want to hike them.

However, Zibawu said comments by Mr Biyam that their members picketing against Stanbic were illegal in that the law says no one should comment of matters before the courts.

'In the meantime the workers of Stanbic as represented by Zibawu are continuing with the job action in the form of a boycott against Stanbic.

"They are calling on all Zimbabwean citizens who believe in the basic tenets of human rights to avoid banking with Stanbic until it starts treating its workers fairly and with dignity," Zibawu said.

The banks workers' union said that this was in line with the fundamental rights of the workers as enshrined in the constitution of the country and labour laws ratified by the International Labour Organisation.

"The workers union said it was a clear act of lawlessness on the part of BAZ to comment on the legality or otherwise of their collective job action knowing that the matter was before the courts.

Zibawu said all parties had the obligation to refrain from actions and comments that are bound to be contemptuous of the justice system.

BAZ said all of Stanbic's workers did not participate in demonstrations and picketing against the bank over demands for a review of salaries.