'The law is an ass,' says Mugabe

President Robert Mugabe has called for the urgent amendment of the Labour Act Act which has triggered an avalanche of job losses in the country based on the recent Supreme Court ruling on termination on three months notice.

His comments come after employers fired more than 9 000 workers countrywide after giving them three months' notice without going through the retrenchment process in line with a recent Supreme Court ruling.

Mugabe was addressing guests as he officially opened the Global Small and Medium Enterprises Expo in Harare yesterday where he emphasised that Government will soon amend the labour law that disadvantages workers.

He said the Labour Relations Act was giving workers a hard time therefore it should be amended.

"The law can be dry dry, dry, dry, dry, as Charles Dickens said, the law is an ass. It can rule, however the law is there to serve the people and not the people to serve the law. If the law creates problems for the people, then that law must be amended.  You don't blame the judges because they interpret the law," he said adding "we admit in some cases there were ridiculous issues that without business, workers would still be kept and paid

"Some companies are going down, some are closing operations. We are against the dismissal of workers. There may be a law which gives more power to employers, of course they own businesses. No one can dispute that if you no longer need workers, you can give them three months' notice before terminating their contracts."

"However we do not want to see people suffering in the streets. It is better to reduce wages than send people home as they still have to pay rentals and other bills. We will look at how companies should handle their workers as the numbers of sacked employees has now surpassed the 9000 mark," he said.

He said the law that entitles the employer to dismiss workers after giving three months' notice was unjust, adding that workers should not be treated as if they were in colonial Rhodesia where they were wantonly dismissed without any benefits.

Mugabe said the law must serve the people and not the people to serve the law.

"But kubva mati vanhu you go hameno zvenyu, going to the streets, in the streets, kupi?" he said.

"Notice yemwedzi mitatu? Ok, so we are now going to look at the law. We don't want the law which is an ass.

"The law must be amended; we don't blame the judges because the judges vanoti ndozvazvinotaura. Zvino ava vemakambani ndobva vomhanyirira voti aah tanga takaremerwa nevanhu vasina basa (the judges just interpret the law, but employers rushed to offload workers citing redundancy).

"Ko imi hupenyu hwenyu vemakambani hunobva kupi? Kurarama kwemakambani kunobva kubasa ravanoitirwa nevashandi (Where do your livelihoods as employers come from? The viability of your firms comes from the sweat of the workers)."

President Mugabe said Government needed to work out a legal framework of how companies handle workers.

"Hatingadaro kuvanhu vedu vanoendepi kana vamwe vagara muno vasina mabasa, mari yekuti vabadhare marent nemvura nezvimwe zvakadaro," he said. "Anyway, we are looking at that situation. Sorry, sorry that this thing happened."