via MDC, ZCTU rap Supreme Court labour ruling – The Zimbabwean 22 July 2015
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) says it is devastated by the Supreme Court’s ruling that allows employers to terminate workers’ contracts by simply giving them notice.
The MDC-T is also disturbed by the ruling, which it says could lead to abuse of workers by employers. The party called on government to speedily publish a statutory instrument (SI) to ensure that workers’ interests were protected.
Japhet Moyo, the ZCTU secretary general, said the ruling would throw organised labour into disarray. “The ruling is devastating for organised labour. It means that employers have sweeping powers regarding the termination of employees’ contracts. It will cause more harm to suffering workers,” said Moyo.
On Friday, the Supreme Court interpreted Zimbabwe’s common law to rule that, unlike in the past when employers had to settle termination packages for workers, they would now be able to simply giving them varying types of notice.
Employees who would have served for at least two years would simply be given a three months’ notice to terminate employment contracts, while those with less than two would need to be given two months’ notice.
No hearing
Those that would have served for three months and below will now be given shorter notice periods. Employers can dismiss staff without going through a disciplinary hearing as currently provided for by the Labour Act.
Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, sitting with four other judges, unanimously agreed that the common law position placing employees and employers on an equal footing was still operational.
They were deciding a case in which two former Zuva Petroleum managers, Don Nyamande and Kingstone Donga, were challenging termination of their contracts under the same circumstances.
Moyo said employees and pregnant workers would be negatively affected by the ruling as employers could simply terminate their contracts if they felt they were a being a burden.
“Many workers will fall prey to the ruling. It will no longer be safe to engage in trade unionism at the workplace as employers are known to be averse to those that lobby against their decisions and activities.
“Employers will be celebrating all the way to the bank because the ruling provides them with an opportunity to offload workers willy-nilly. That means workers will not afford to differ with management in any way but this is not good for work-based democracy,” added Moyo.
He said a clique of the middle-class was fighting to exploit employees through the courts.
Obert Gutu, the MDC-T national spokesperson, said: “As a labour-based movement, we are naturally disturbed by the ruling and urge government to urgently come up with a statutory instrument to protect the interests of workers.”
Ironically, one of the key members of the legal team that represented Zuva against its employees is Nelson Chamisa, an advocate who is a senior member of MDC-T.
Chamisa described the ruling as a “landmark development” but Moyo said he should have recused himself from the case. “His party has a heavy labour bias, yet he went ahead and represented an employer in this ruling. He stood for capital instead of labour,” said Moyo.
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