Emcoz to hold wage summit

via Emcoz to hold wage summit – The Zimbabwe Independent November 17, 2014

THE Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe (Emcoz) next week holds a wage bargaining summit which will focus on guidelines for the 2015 wage negotiations within the various national employment councils(NECs).

This comes at a time workers and employers have been engaged in protracted and bitter disagreements over wages with some of the disputes being referred to arbitration.

Some of the NECs are yet to conclude wage negotiations for 2014 due to disagreements between employers and workers.

Emcoz executive director John Mufukare told a on Wednesday that the summit, which will be held in Victoria Falls, focuses on the benchmarks for wage negotiations next year.

“We are going to discuss what should inform collective bargaining agreements,” Mufukare said. “We need to have an environment where we are on the same footing where our economic environment is concerned.”

He said there is need to negotiate from “an informed position rather than an emotional position” when engaged in discussions over wages.

Mufukare said the summit will also focus on coming up with a minimum package for retrenched employees as cases of workers being made redundant continues to increase.

Statistics from the Retrenchment Board shows that more than 5600 workers have been retrenched so far this year. Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions secretary general Japhet Moyo revealed recently that 52 companies have laid off workers this year.

Mufukare said there is a need to end confrontation between workers and employers.

“We are still pointing fingers at each other. The critical thing is to be on the same page,” he said.