Pula Steel workers strike over late salaries
Ivy Matlho | Wednesday February 10, 2016 18:00
A representative of the employees, Ofentse Ithuteng said the management has been making empty promises as to when they will be paid their salaries. He said they usually receive their monthly payments on the 21st of every month.
He said after the management failed to pay them on the agreed date, they were then promised to be paid by the first week of February, a date that has been missed again.
“We are usually paid on the 21st, but this time we have not yet received our January salaries. We have been talking to the management concerning the issue, but nothing has been done,” he said.
Ithuteng also said workers have also not received their overtime payments for the months of October to December.
He added that it is not the first time their employer had failed to pay them on time, but they have been soldiering on hoping that the situation would improve. “We are tired of working and being paid late. We have families to take care of and some of us here have borrowed money from commercial banks and arrears are increasing,” he said. Ithuteng said Pula Steel has not been taking their concerns into consideration because production has so far not been affected as at least eight of the workers did not join the industrial action.
Pula Steel official, Brian Mosenene confirmed the industrial action and said they have engaged the employees concerning payments issues. “We have indicated that we will pay them first week of February. We thought they understood that there will be delays in January salary payments,” he said.
Mosenene said they had explained to employees that payments from the first batch of billets that were sent to countries such as Zambia and Zimbabwe in December were expected by end of January hence the delay in their salaries.
“The terms are that we are paid for our billets 30 days after shipment and we have explained this to them,” he said.
He stated that the money has arrived, but employees are not yet paid because of procedures that commercial banks have to follow when dealing with cross border money transfers.
“Some situations are beyond our control. We have asked commercial banks to deposit money into our employees account, but they have explained they are still undergoing bank clearance process,” he said.
Mosenene said they are hopeful the situation will not be repeated and they have promised their employees that their outstanding balances for overtime will be paid with January salaries.
Meanwhile, Mosenene has also said Pula Steel has received orders for billets worth P40 million.
Pula Steel plant, a subsidiary of the troubled BCL, is the first integrated steel plant in Botswana which processes scrap metal into an intermediate product called billet. In November last year, Pula steel announced it had exported 300 tonnes as its first batch of billet to South Africa.
The plant, which was officially opened last year, is one of BCL mine’s Polaris II strategy that is aimed at cutting reliance on copper and nickel.