Job losses reprieve

August 15, 2015 in National, News

GOVERNMENT has proposed a minimum retrenchment package for workers in the event that their work contracts have been terminated on notice in the new Labour Amendment Bill.

by VENERANDA LANGA/PAIDAMOYO MUZULU

This comes as President Robert Mugabe has hastily recalled Parliament to deliberate on the Labour Amendment Bill on Tuesday with a view to passing it into law. The proposed amendments will protect employees from being fired willy-nilly without having discussed and signed an agreement with their employers.

More than 20 000 workers have already lost their jobs without compensation following a recent Supreme Court ruling that allowed employers to terminate employee contracts on three months’ notice.

The Labour Amendment Bill proposes a minimum retrenchment package, but gives room to financially incapacitated employers to prove they were unable to pay by applying to their National Employment Council or a Retrenchment Board for exemption.

According to the proposed amendments on Section 12, Subsection 4 of the Labour Act, employers are not allowed to terminate contracts of employment on notice unless the termination was in terms of an employment code and if the employee had mutually agreed in writing to the termination of the contract.

“No employer shall terminate a contract of employment of notice unless, (a) the termination is in terms of an employment code, and (b) the employee was engaged for a period of fixed duration or for the performance of some specific service,” reads part of the proposed amendments.

On issues of retrenchment of workers and compensation, the Bill says employers who wish to retrench more than one employee should give written notice of their intention to an established works council.

“If there is no works council or employment council for the undertaking concerned, to the Retrenchment Board, and in such event any reference in this section to the performance of functions by works council or employment council shall be construed as a reference to the retrenchment board or a person appointed by the board to perform such functions on its behalf,” the draft Bill reads.

The proposed amendments also provide for a minimum retrenchment package for employees, if there is no agreement on such a package between the employer and employees.

“A package (herein after called a minimum retrenchment package) of not less than one months’ salary or wages for every two years of service as an employee (or the equivalent lesser proportion of one months’ salary or wages for a lesser period of service) shall be paid by the employer as compensation for loss of employment (whether the loss of employment is occasioned by retrenchment or by virtue of termination of employment pursuant to Section 12 (4) (a), (b), or (c), no later than date when the notice of termination of employment takes effect.”

The proposed amendments of the Act also seek to create special measures to avoid retrenchment.

If no agreement is reached on retrenchment, an employer shall give written notice of his or her proposed measures to avoid retrenchment and of the opposing proposals, if any, to the employment council established for the undertaking or industry, or retrenchment board if there is no employment council for the undertaking consent.