Labour Bill came at the right time

The recent passing of the Labour Bill both in the House of Assembly and the Senate without a lot of amendments is a victory for the workers who have been on the receiving end from their employers since the 17 July, 2015 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the common law practice allowing employers to dismiss employees in a three month notice. Such a ruling was welcomed by the employers and immediately started dismissing workers with no compensation in sight.

A lot of companies and employers dismissed some workers using that Supreme Court ruling, leaving the labour force in a dilemma as the workers were dismissed without terminal benefits. Some of the workers who would have served their companies for many years were dismissed with nothing to show to their families for the years they spent working for their respective companies.

As such the Labour Amendment Bill, which is now awaiting the Presidential assent for it to become law, has come as a relief to the workers who were seeing a gloomy future in their livelihood. Workers were treated like plastic receptacles that could be easily disposed of by their employers as a lot of companies took the Supreme Court ruling as the basis to dismiss workers on a three month notice.

Employers developed thick skin as they took turns to dismiss their workers without considering the ramifications of what workers were going through, such as anxiety and stress over where the source of their livelihood would come from. They were not concerned with the hardships in which the workers were going to experience as they were going to grapple with what the future had in store for them. The employers welcomed the 17 July 2015 Supreme Court, wining and dining as if celebrating some financial windfall.

To the employers, it was good to dismiss their workers without thinking of having to give them terminal benefits yet the employees were rightly supposed to get their terminal benefits as an appreciation of the contribution they made in the survival of those companies. The swift action by government to amend the Labour Law in order to stop the random dismissal of workers from their work was a timely intervention. The amendment of the Labour Law came at the right time as the dismissal of the workers brought an outcry around the country.

Actually, the Labour Amendment Bill which would be soon signed by the President for it to become law has many facets which could be a relief to the workers. The fact that the Bill is to be applied in retrospect, starting from 17 July 2015, is a welcome development which would serve the workers who were dismissed from that date up to this day. This development means that those workers who were fired by their employers after July 17, 2015 would be compensated.

The fact of the matter contained in the amended Labour Law is that workers are going to get a one month`s pay for every two years served. This move would be proper to the dismissed workers as they would get what they worked for.

Now that the tables have turned against the employers for dismissing workers for no apparent reasons, the same employers are crying foul over the amendment of the Labour Law saying that it is counterproductive, forgetting that when the Supreme Court ruled that workers could be dismissed on a three month notice, they celebrated that ruling because it was in favour of them.

Employers are forgetting that the willy-nilly dismissal of workers following the Supreme Court ruling which came after the two Zuva Petroleum employees sought to be reinstated by their employer was not a window for all companies to fire the workers without compensation. The dismissal of the workers following that ruling could not have surpassed compassion that was supposed to be employed by employers on their workers. Actually the employers should have realized that workers are also human beings who need their rights to be observed.

So the timely intervention by government in that regard through the Labour Amendment Bill has come at the right time because Zimbabweans were facing a bleak future caused by such dismissals of workers. The government, through the ruling party which has the people at heart, found it necessary to halt such inhumane dismissals of workers without compensation.

While the employers are crying foul over the passage of that Bill, employees are celebrating as they see that as the victory on their part. Some employees feel that the government`s intervention has come at the right time as it has brought relief to them since they were facing a bleak future caused by such unnecessary dismissals. A lot of workers in the country were now accustomed to fearing of the unknown as they were not quite sure of what the future had in store for them. The way how workers were dismissed through three months` notice made it impossible for them to plan for their future as they feared being dismissed as well.

So Zimbabweans should now applaud the government for its timely intervention over the dismissal of workers when it finally came up with the Labour Amendment Bill. Now the Labour Amendment Bill, which is now awaiting Presidential assent, would save a lot of workers from unnecessary dismissals and also serve the country from having a lot of unemployed people, which is counterproductive as well.

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John Mukumbo <mukumbojohn@yahoo.com