ZCTU blast Labour minister over workers dismissals remarks

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has blasted Minister of labour and Social Services Prisca Mupfumira for misfiring in her remarks about the Supreme Court ruling that companies can dismiss workers after giving them three months notice without pay describing her statements as purely greatest betrayal.

In a statement the ZCTU secretary general Japhet Moyo said ZCTU is shocked with the stance taken by Public Service, Labour and Social Services Minister Prisca Mupfumira on the controversial Supreme Court ruling that allows employers to terminate contracts of employment on notice.

"Minister Mupfumira told the press that the Supreme Court judges were 'correctly and appropriately' guided by the law and that companies should exercise maximum restraint in terminating workers' contracts," said Moyo.

"The Minister's utterances are in sharp contrast with what had been agreed by social partners at the Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF). The partners had agreed to ask President Robert Mugabe to evoke the Presidential Powers Temporary Measures to stop these senseless terminations."

He said by saying this, the minister is tacitly approving the judgment and the subsequent firing of workers.

"By the time the Labour Act is amended, thousands of workers would have lost their jobs and this is the greatest betrayal of the working people of this country by a Minister who should be at the forefront protecting the weakest partner in the labour market," said Moyo.

"The ZCTU would not want to believe that the Cabinet has become a club of capitalists who now control the means of production, and thus represent the wishes of employers. Overnight Zimbabweans have been thrust back to the colonial era of Master and Servant by the very same people who fought against that system."

He said the ZCTU maintains that the Presidential Powers must be used before an amicable solution is found otherwise there will be no workers to talk about in a few months' time as trigger happy employers are firing workers left and right.