WORKERS at Vumbachikwe Mine in Gwanda, Matabeleland South have issued a distress call after the company failed to pay salaries for October and arrears.
The wives of the mine workers picketed outside the mine premises on Monday last week to demand better treatment for their husbands.
“The employers who run the mine exhibit capitalist and colonial-era tactics. They boast about their connections and ignore our labour laws at will,” one of the workers said.
The workers have engaged Gwanda-based human rights watchdog, Coalition for Citizens Advocates (Coca), to assist them.
Coca secretary Wilbert Ndiweni on Thursday said they visited the mine on Monday where workers narrated their ordeal.
“In September they only got a local currency component of their salaries. Their salaries normally come in local and foreign currency (USD) in a 40 and 60% split,” Ndiweni said.
He said according to the workers representatives, their plight dates back to 2016 when the company started disregarding stipulated industrial norms.
“Dozens of competent staff members are continuously put on forced leave and discriminatory tactics are used in stage-managed disciplinary procedures,” Ndiweni said.
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“Demands for outstanding April and July backpay are falling on deaf ears. As we speak, the employees are not aware of when the October salary is coming.”
He said when Coca members arrived at the mine, the wives of the mine workers were camped at the place to air their grievances.
“Most of them expressed anger over failure to pay school fees, medicals and afford decent meals because their husbands had not been paid,” Ndiweni said.
Workers committee chairperson, Gibson Sibanda on Thursday confirmed the stand-off with the management.
“What Coca has told you is true. This is what we told them and as I speak (Thursday) we are at Gwanda Ministry of Labour with the company's human resources manager over the matter,” Sibanda said.
Efforts to get a comment from the Vubachikwe Mine manager None Kananji were fruitless as calls were not being picked.
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