Open letter to the minister of Labour and Home Affairs

| Thursday July 10, 2008 00:00

I write this letter with a painful and unforgiving sorrow towards those who perpetrated these acts on me and the poor employees of this citizen owned company after I decided to jump ship, (thanks to the current president's gesture of sponsoring all Form Five eavers for further studies and I hope this letter will go a long way in assisting those (my brothers and sisters) who remained behind, not that they have other options like me.
Sometime back I knew that Cash Bazaar Holdings was a wholly citizen owned company with sister companies including Furniture Mart, Topline, Taku Taku, Sole Shoes and Cash Bazaar itself as a shop. But now I hear some foreigner or some South African has a shareholding in it which may possibly be classified as a joint venture.

Mr Minister I implore you to go or send your officers to investigate acts of abuse in this company because I happened to be an employee of one of the shoe retailers (viz Taku and Sole Shoes) in this company and honestly I think if there are any acts of inhuman labour practices in our labour industry it is in this company where you will find them.

Firstly we were made to stand upright for eight hours or more everyday. Shops open at 8am in the morning and close at 6pm in the evening and all this time staff are not allowed to sit for a single minute or even lean against any wall or counter even if there are no customers being assisted in the shop. The only time employees can relax their legs is during the one hour lunch time, and guess what? During this one hour lunch time employees are not allowed to rest in the shop storeroom and are not even allowed to visit other sister companies, and are also not allowed to have lunch in the company storeroom.

Small as this may seem, Mr Minister try to stand straight in your office for about one hour and you will feel how painful it can be, but in the company policy its at least eight hours or risk being fired. I am lucky to have left quickly because my weight was having a bearing on my legs and they were beginning to swell.

Secondly employees in these companies are supposed to meet their individual set budgets every month, and the whole shop budget if they are to retain their employment in the company. If one individual does not meet the set target they are written a warning following which if it happens again they are dismissed.

If the whole shop fails to meet the budget the so called branch managers (who some of them earn a salary  far less than that of a government driver) is made to write an explanatory letter why the shop didn't meet the set sales target. If it happens repeatedly the whole branch staff have to be dismissed, and this one is more painful because their fate depends on customers. An open plea to the members of the public is that when you see those brothers and sisters (ba a nka go thusa) you must not think they are being nasty, they are only trying to retain their employment by making a sale to you.

The other issue is one of sick leave. Employees are only allowed 14 days sick leave in a whole year otherwise if one's sick leave goes beyond the 14 days, it is treated as paid leave which accumulates to as little as 18 day,s per annum and if paid days leave are finished, it's dismissal. This one is even more painful because for one to be allowed to go to a clinic for treatment it is a mammoth task, and employees are only allowed two hours to visit a clinic otherwise they have absconded from work. Mr Minister can you explain why the government allows its employees 90 days sick leave per annum and allows the labour laws to grant only 14 days to us in the private sector.

The other issue is that of holidays. Mr Minister the company tells us that the calendar, which has all the gazetted holidays from the government does not apply to it. Apparently there is another calendar printed by BOCCIM that applies to the company that is why you find the shops only close during the Christmas and New Year holidays otherwise we are supposed to be at work all the other holidays and we are not paid double rate and are are not entitled to a day off either.

The only day that entitled us to a day off is a Sunday, and guess what? You can only take the day off Monday to Thursday but not on a Friday or Saturday. (Company policy)
Last but not least, Mr Minister I wish to let you know that I believe there are acts of racism that may come out of your investigation, particularly by a gentleman  who happens to be General Manager.

This man terrorizes the branch managers, who in turn terrorise us who are all lumped together as shop assistants.

I am saying this because apparently the company employees are only tools to him that are supposed to bring money to his company, whether they the tools are oiled enough to do so, it is none of his business. This man is said to be a Boer from South Africa and we hear the area managers who are all Batswana are just at his mercy. I am saying that there could be some element of racism in him because, we hear at any given time he could walk into a shop that didn't reach the targeted sales and tell the employees that when he looks at them he feels like vomiting. In our culture this is not a way to talk to another human being and some of them (branch managers) are old enough to be his mother.

And finally Mr Minister tell your labour officers not to treat any employer with kid gloves if he has wronged against the law no matter how big their names are. Every employee in this country needs to maintain their dignity and discipline and to be able to do that they need to be treated with respect and protected by the law.

Modiri Mompoloki Modisaotsile
MOSHUPA