Retrenched workers might not get exit packages

Thousands of retrenched workers might not get any packages as employers say there is no need for payout because they enjoy other benefits such as pensions and gratuities.

Employers claim that they never agreed in retrenchment packages but only terms of the job.

The Employers' Confederation of Zimbabwe (EMCOZ) wants a Labour Amendment Act passed last year to be further amended to remove a provision that requires employers to pay retrenchment packages.

EMCOZ representatives appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare on Monday where they savaged the Labour Amendment Act for seeking to protect the rights of workers while "ignoring the rights of employers".

EMCOZ senior vice president  Callisto Jokonya said they were challenging the constitutionality of the Labour Amendment Act in the courts for demanding that employers pay retrenchment packages to employees at a rate of two weeks' salary for every year served.

He said they were particularly miffed by the Act's provision that those whose contracts were terminated as a result of a Supreme Court judgment of July last year must be paid their retrenchment packages retrospectively.

"The most difficult law that we have in this country is the labour law.

"To me, it encouragers laziness, it moves away accountability and it penalises the company or the investor.

"If an employee is no longer performing and delivering the results, the best is that we disagree and part ways.

"There are areas which as investors (business), we totally disagree with and that is retrenchment. I don't understand where it comes from.

"When I employ you, we agree on the terms of the job. We never agree on the terms of retrenchment. That is not part of it," said Jokonya.