By Agness Changala
Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) secretary general Joy Beene has urged companies to see how best they can work with the eight hours load shedding in work places and help save the few available jobs available.
And Beene says the unions in the country will no longer keep quiet about the country’s debt saying it is becoming a danger to African governments.
There are media reports of some employers implementing salary cuts on workers in response to the challenges being encountered as a result of load shedding.
Some employers are also reported to be downsizing the workforce due to load shedding.
Daily Revelation reached out to ZCTU to find out if any of its member unions had given them this information and Beene said the union mother body had not yet received such information.
He however, said if this was happening, it is not good and employers must find a way of dealing with the challenges load shedding had brought.
Beene said hiding into load shedding won’t help the country develop.
“Hiding in load shedding won’t help the country to develop. What we need is companies and organizations which are in production coming with shifts not necessarily doing away with the workers,” he said “We have not received a complaint of that nature from our affiliate unions, we don’t receive complaints from individual members as ZCTU but normally we are always in touch with our affiliates so the leaders in those unions affected are the ones who can update us. However, if that’s happening and the companies have decided to go that way, that’s not good.”
He said it was important to engage union leaders and see how this can work.
“So yes, ZESCO has come up with eight hours load shedding, these are things we can sit around a table and discuss. Say why you can’t stagger eight hours for example into fours. The idea is to save and preserve the few jobs which are available and these are things we can still sit down and discuss,” he said.
And Beene said the issue of debt was becoming a big problem in African countries and was causing a danger to the government.
He said time had come for unions not to keep quiet about debt because it affected union members as well.
He said last week, ZCTU hosted 150 unions from across Africa on the last day of the event, and presented a petition to the government through labour minister Brenda Tambatamba.
Beene explained that the petition to the government was to lobby creditors/money leaders like China for them to quickly sit down and have a restructured debt payment.
He said the union initially wanted to make the petition to Finance minister Dr. Situmbeko Musokotwane but he had another engagement.
