Timber employers unhappy with minimum wage
Workers want the minimum wage to remain fixed at US$150.
EMPLOYERS and workers in the country’s timber sector are fighting over the sector’s minimum wage of US$150, with employers demanding that this should be reduced to US$105 due to the prevailing harsh economic environment.
The workers want the minimum wage to remain fixed at US$150, where it was pegged in 2013 after their efforts last year to get it increased to US$180 failed.
General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) secretary general, Golden Magwaza, said the protracted dispute, which started late last year, is now heading for the Supreme Court after the employers rejected a recent Labour Court ruling in favour of keeping the minimum wage at US$150.
“They have indicated that they want the matter to go to the Supreme Court and we are waiting to file our arguments opposing the move once they approach the Labour Court for permission to take the matter to the Supreme Court,” Magwaza said.
In a Labour Court ruling of September 1, 2016, Justice Rodgers Manyangadze dismissed an application by the Timber Sector Employers Association (ESEA) for the court to order an arbitrator who handled the deadlocked wage negotiations last year to reduce the minimum wage from US$150 to US$105.
The US$150 minimum wage was fixed by the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that was gazetted in 2013.
Last year, the workers wanted the minimum wage increased to US$180, but the employers resisted.
The employers demanded that the figure be reduced to US$105, but the arbitrator refused, saying he had no powers to alter the CBA.
This resulted in the employers taking their matter to the Labour Court where Justice Manyangadze concurred with the arbitrator, saying he had no jurisdiction to reduce the minimum wage fixed by the CBA.
“In casu, the appellant has not demonstrated any satisfactory reasons why its members circumvented the domestic remedies available, in the form of the NEC exemption committee,” Manyangadze pointed out.
“It must be pointed out that this court was not seized with the question of whether or not the appellant is able to pay the minimum wage. It was rather seized with the question as to whether the arbitrator could reduce an agreed minimum wage, concluded in a CBA that was duly registered and gazetted as a Statutory Instrument. The arbitrator found that he could not do so.
“I find no basis for interfering with the arbitrator’s decision. In my view, the arbitral award was well reasoned and fully supported by both legislative and case authorities. In the circumstances, the appeal cannot succeed, being devoid of merit.”
The Labour Court noted that the employers had not exhausted all the remedies provided for under the National Employment Council (NEC).
“The question of the ability to pay, which the appellant (employers) seemed to dwell on a lot, can be interrogated at the NEC. There is in existence a mechanism for applying for exemptions by an employer who raised that contention.
All the factors the appellant was referring to, such as the harsh economic environment, the need to be realistic and take into account the changing fortunes of the business, are the sort that will be considered in an application for exemption.
It is a feature incorporated in the CBA, as the parties foresaw the possibility of such problems arising.
Magwaza said GAPWUZ did not understand why ESEA was avoiding advising companies claiming that they could not afford the current minimum wage appearing before the exemptions committee where they would have their books of accounts scrutinised to confirm that indeed they cannot afford to continue paying the gazetted minimum wage.