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Lovemore Mataire Harare Bureau
THE labour law is disadvantaging workers and the government is working fast on amending it to ensure employees are not fired willy-nilly by their bosses, President Robert Mugabe has said.

His comments come after employers throughout the country have fired more than 9,000 workers after giving them three months notice without going through the retrenchment process.

President Mugabe was speaking while officially opening the Global Small and Medium Enterprises Expo in Harare yesterday where he emphasised that the government will soon amend the labour law that disadvantages workers.

He said the law that entitles the employer to dismiss workers after a three months notice was unjust, adding that workers should not be treated as if they were in colonial Rhodesia where they were wantonly dismissed without any benefits.

The President said the law must serve the people and not the people to serve the law.

“But to say to people go home its your problem, going to the streets, in the streets, where?” he said. “Notice of just three months? Ok, so we’re now going to look at the law. We don’t want a law which is an ass.

“The law must be amended; we don’t blame the judges because the judges say that’s what the law says. Then the companies rushed to fire the people they considered excess manpower.

“Are these companies not what they are because of these workers’ labour over the years?”

President Mugabe said the government needed to work out a legal framework of how companies handle workers.

“Where will these people go and how will they meet their financial obligations such as paying rent, water bills and other such expenses when they’re out of employment?,” he said.

“Anyway, we’re looking at that situation. Sorry, sorry that this thing happened.”

President Mugabe said he had been briefed by the Harare Metropolitan Minister Miriam Chikukwa that more than 9,000 workers have so far been dismissed.

Several companies embraced the Supreme Court judgement with speed after it was passed last week and started sacking workers without explanation after giving them three months’ notice.

The Supreme Court bench ruled in a case involving two Zuva Petroleum managers that common law still applies in the relationship between employers and their employees, allowing employers to dismiss workers on three month’s notice or pay in lieu of notice.