via Ziscosteel workers go for 3 years without pay – DailyNews Live Chengetai Zvauya 30 JANUARY 2014
Ziscosteel workers have appealed to Nicholas Goche, minister of Labour and Social Welfare, to intervene and expedite payment of their outstanding salaries.
The workers, through their lawyers Matsikidze, Mucheche legal practitioners, wrote to Goche highlighting problems they were facing.
“Our clients have instructed us to inform you the prevailing labour socio-economic crisis that is affecting them and their families,” said the January 21, 2014 letter.
“The workers have gone for 38 months without salaries.
“They have not been told of their fate until today and the negotiations seem to treat the employees as passengers as opposed to participants.”
The steel producer was taken over by Indian conglomerate Essar Africa Holding Limited (Essar) in a multimillion dollar deal that saw the formation of a new company called NewZim Steel.
Ziscosteel workers’ representatives, led by Benedict Moyo, confirmed that the workers had engaged lawyers to help them get their dues.
Moyo is chairperson of Ziscosteel Joint Workers Union.
Last year, he appeared before the Parliamentary portfolio committee on Industry and Commerce together with Zisco Workers Union Representatives led by Obert Shokomhishi and briefed the committee on issues regarding resuscitation of operations at the mine.
He described their living conditions as pathetic following the closure of the company five years ago.
He told the committee how the 3 500 workers were failing to look after their families and not paying schools fees for their children.
“Kwekwe town is closing down,” Moyo said. “Ian Smith used to come to Ziscosteel to address us during the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, letting us know that we are the backbone of the economy.
“Now we wonder what is happening with our political leaders over Zisco closure. How was President Robert Mugabe allowed to visit us when there was nothing that was going to happen in terms of reopening the mine?”
“We feel that the responsible ministers are playing politics of Zanu PF and MDC at our expense.”
Mike Bimha, the minister of Industry and Commerce, whose portfolio is responsible for Ziscosteel has made countless promises to the workers, but none of them have been fulfilled.
During its peak, Ziscosteel employed 5 000 people and was a major producer of iron-ore and steel products, exporting thousands of tonnes of its steel products on the continent and European markets.
Moyo said the workers were left with no option but to approach the president’s office to intervene so that they may get their salaries.
COMMENTS
If you have not been paid for 3 years how on earth could you be called a “worker”. Disease, slug, parasite, useless. These would be more appropriate. If you cannot move on and instead wait around for some unearned payout you must be part of what killed the company in the first place. Even more unimaginable is that a slug who waited 3 years unpaid could ever form part of a highly motivated and efficient workforce in the future. Hey if we wait long enough we will get manner from heaven or maybe the the Americans will send their bombers and bomb us with gold coins. Wake up.
John Thomas,if thats your name,you are a real heartless prick!Do me a favour and go screw yourself.
John Thomas is correct, what self respecting person would hang around that long to get paid? Surely the thing to do would be to move on and find another job somewhere else in the meantime while you wait for your unpaid salary?
Sorry to offend you Zimbo. You would be one of those holding us back I presume.
Holding you back from what?Instead of sympathizing with these poor workers,here you are calling them all kinds of names.Shame on you!These people have nowhere to go,like millions of other Zimbabweans and all you do is beat them down.To the Zisco workers and others that are not being paid,go and take what is rightfully owed to you and to hell with everything else!
And there we have it Zimbo. You are just another ZANU thief.
@John Thomas-well said,this is why their stores manager wanted to steal 38 drums of copper cables using one of the stupidest methods I have ever heard in my life time.
I left my highly technical job for early pension because they were restructuring the company the way I did not like it,so only naive and useless people stick for 3 years without salaries expecting God to answer their empty prayers.The bible says the man will eat through his sweat not sitting and expecting miracles.
Thomas and Sutherland, clearly both you are not privy to the harsh realities of Zim. You are probably posting from the comfort of your centrally-heated apartments in Midwest United Kingdom or central Manhattan. Do you honestly think someone would go 3 years working unpaid if there were “other jobs” lying around, waiting to be taken? Unemployment is raging at 90%, Zisco employed 60-70% of that whole town in its heydays. Right now Zisco is closed, but the desperate employees have only that as their lifeline and cling to the promises that have been made by the highest office of the land to re-launch operations, but have continually been let down. Before you post misguided comments here, why don’t you go for yourself and check the desperation and resilience of those who can actually survive 3 years with no pay and whose only hope is that the heart of Kwekwe will start beating again!!
Dear Greyhora unlike you I have never been to the UK or the US. Kwekwe/Redcliffe are just another ruined relic of an age passed. The country is full of them. Problem is nothing has been built to replace them. We live in a tyranny of the useless. No decent enterprise can get started because all drive is drained by the dead weight of those who would reap where they have not sewn. The alleged victims in the article above are surely the partial authors of their own misery. Even now the enterprise cannot be resuscitated for all the arm twisting of potential investors by those who have caused the collapse of this business including the alleged workers. Resilience is something one might associate with success not failure. Lack of choice equals lack of initiative, lack of drive, lack of imagination, lack of discipline, lack of self respect, if fact a state of lack. There will be nothing to get the heart of Kwekwe beating again from this lot
I have experienced it myself and did something about it, my own parents have experienced the last 34 years of misery and my Mother, along with many other workers, was retrenched from Wankie Colliery Company in 2004 after 30 years service A Company formed over a hundred years ago and very quickly destroyed through the current Governments corrupt practises, so don,t try and tell me about the realities of Zimbabwe, I have lived it, tasted it, swallowed it etc. etc
Surely-clinging to empty promises for so long!! It does not make sense to me sitting here in Byo.I would rather try something else to feed my family than waiting and getting old at the old refinery complex.All indigenise people have rural homes to go to if the worst comes.
I think you are better off in a rural area if you are unemployed than to suffer in an urban area where you have so many monthly bills like rent,electricity and water.Do not allow desperation to take away your personal pride in life otherwise you are as good as dead.
Calling me a Zanu thief is laughable Johnny.But I will say this,if I work and dont get paid I am taking what is owed to me.And I make no apologies for that.
Being a willing victim makes it right to steal..? Entitlement. That’s part of the mentality that has destroyed Zim.
I agree with John Thomas. How can you wait for 3 years without being paid, waiting for what? Same as every Zimbabwean, since 1998 waiting for a ZANU inspired turnaround to the Zimbabwean situation. Well keep waiting! If we don’t remove ZANU and Mugabe from power then we are in for a very long wait. And Moyo, better known for football rather brains, writes to the office that is the main source of the problem; what does he expect