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Deputy Minister Petronella Kagonye

Fairness Moyana in Hwange
HWANGE Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) will start paying its workers full salaries this month while Government negotiates a bailout to meet the lumpsum payment demanded by the workers, a Cabinet Minister has said.

The workers who last got a consistent full salary five years ago, are demanding a lumpsum pay-out of $5 000. Their spouses have engaged in a demonstration and are camped at the company premises since January. The company owes its creditors $352 million with $74 million being owed to workers.

Updating disgruntled spouses at about 10PM following more than 12 hours marathon meetings with management, workers, spouses and labour union’s representatives on Wednesday, Labour and Social Welfare Minister, Petronella Kagonye, said the protracted labour impasse had been resolved after parties reached a consensus on most burning issues.

“We had a meeting with both parties and we started off by emphasising that management are not the owners of the company but workers too. I came here on behalf of Government who are the owners of the company as Minister of Labour because my work involves oversight role of the playing field, so both parties have fair advantages,” said the minister.

“In the meeting 31 issues raised by the workers were discussed and strategies were devised on how they were going to be handled. The implementation of the Scheme of Arrangement, which was dogged by suspicions on the model used to determine how much someone is owed and supposed to get will be revised. So we agreed that everyone will get full month salary starting this month.”

Minister Kagonye said the $10 000 lumpsum pay-out being demanded by workers would be taken to the President and Treasury since the company had no capacity to pay after re-negotiating it to $5 000.

“When we started the workers indicated that they wanted a lumpsum pay-out of $10 000 and following negotiations and discussion the figure got to $5 000 with the employees maintaining their stance,” she said.

“Remember labour issues are about negotiations and it entails compromising so the standoff was now on $5 000. However, they failed to agree on only this one thing, the rest they reached an agreement. I then said that the last contentious issue is what I will carry back to the President and Treasury for a way forward. We cannot make a decision here on that, there are processes and procedures that guide us. So that one sticking point is what we will wait to hear from Government after I take it up.”

According to the minister, HCCL indicated that it was able to pay out a lumpsum of $1 000 arguing that it was facing cashflows and working capital challenges. The marathon meetings, which started in the morning ended with the minister’s address to demonstrating spouses at around 10PM.

Presenting their grievances workers demanded that the company pays them what it owes in line with scheme terms. They also demanded remission of pension funds to the relevant body and asked Government to facilitate finance and oversight management saying they have lost faith in the incumbent management and board.

Both parties agreed that salaries would be paid concurrently with the Scheme of Arrangement instalments and that all directives on policies were going to be revised and the conclusion of the retrenchment exercise to allow industrial relations to return to normal. HCCL has agreed not to evict its former employees from its houses until they were paid their full benefits. The workers also called for investigations in the awarding of tenders to contractors whom they accused of producing shoddy work for the company while calling for trimming of management.

Minister Kagonye tried in vain to call on demonstrating spouses to return home. The women vowed to remain until their husbands got their lumpsum payments. The minister acknowledged the problems facing the colliery and urged workers to be patient while grievances were being addressed.