Zambian investors supervise workers with dogs - claim

CHARITY MUSA
Correspondent | Wednesday May 9, 2007 00:00

She added that there is unemployment in Zambia, which has given power to employers to continue intimidating workers and threatening them with instant dismissals and redundancies.

Nonde said even the Zambian government is guilty because it continues to suppress workers' rights by victimising union leaders.
She said because of such tactics, union leaders grew cold feet and compromised the trust of their members by accepting deplorable conditions of service.
'These same trade union leaders in their desperate attempts to win elections in the labour movement use government apparatus to campaign,' Nonde said. She added that such unionists could never be effective because they were responsible for the appalling working conditions in the first place.

'I therefore call upon such labour leaders to resign and join government or become management cadres instead of posing as workers' representatives during the day and entering into dubious agreements that violate workers' rights at night,' Nonde charged.
She said privatisation of parastatal companies has led to a terrible decay in cultural, social and economic rights of the Zambian worker.
Nonde said despite the existence of appropriate statutory instruments, 'employers continue to pay slave wages'.

She said as a result, thousands of workers are getting less than K100, 000 (about P1, 000) a month.
The FFTUZ leader urged Zambians to start shunning banks and other financial lending institutions, which promote casual labour by engaging workers on fixed short-term contracts, which was de-motivating and killing productivity.
Nonde said in such banks and financial institutions, there was a huge skills shortage. (Sila Press Agency)