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A group of workers of retail clothing chain Power Sales yesterday besieged the company’s Belmont factory in Bulawayo in protest after they were reportedly served redundancy notices without clarity on their benefits.
Some disgruntled workers reportedly demanded a meeting with management at the factory on Wednesday night to demand an explanation for their grievances.
Chronicle news crews visited the company yesterday morning and found workers milling around the closed factory while others arrived and joined co-workers inside.
Members of the Electricity Sales Workers Council were barred from entering the plant while an unnamed senior official addressed the workers.
According to the workers’ council, about 30 contract workers received termination letters without any notice. Malvin Chidziva, one of the disgruntled workers and a supervisor, said they were shocked by how management treated them.
“We haven’t been paid for two months, we are sleeping here and trying to make our grievances known to the management, but they don’t seem to care much about our plight, so, we don’t know what to do,” he said.
“So far they say we should come on Tuesday and we’re pinning our hopes on them that the landlords are waiting for us because they want the rent.”
Workers say they have not been paid their full wages since January and accuse management of downplaying their plight. They said only a paltry $160,000 and $270,000 were paid in February, a pittance in dollar terms.
Prince Nyoni, secretary-general of the Garment Industry Workers Council, said working conditions at Power Sales had become dire.
“It’s sad that employees are entering their second month without being paid. We spoke to management about this and they said they don’t have the funds to pay workers in full and can only give them piecemeal,” He said.
“Management yesterday committed to paying the RTGS portion to workers and as per our garment notification, we agreed that 25% of the RTGS portion of wages should be paid based on the prevailing exchange rate and 75% should be paid in US dollars.”
Mr Nyoni said the workers were in a desperate situation as they were unable to pay rent or buy food for their families. He said they would refer the matter to the National Employees Commission (NEC) for further assistance.
In solidarity with the Garment Workers Council, Mr John Manyuchi, secretary-general of the Private Security Workers Union, said the electricity sales management should pay attention to workers’ grievances.
Attempts to seek comment from Fanuel Mahachi, director of power sales, were in vain as he did not answer the phone and officials at the plant were unwilling to engage with the media.
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