By Daily Revelation Editor
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.
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.”
Beene has made some observations about how companies must ensure that they do not use what he describes as the excuse of load shedding to downsize on the workforce. Indeed companies must do all they can to preserve the few jobs in the market given the load shedding schedule. However, this may not be entirely possible because companies must operate in such a way that they can stay afloat, and it cannot be denied that this 8-hour load shedding regime will make that effort a little bit more tasking to achieve.
We appreciate Beene’s urge to the companies, but we would have thought that he would extend such advice to the government on how they can lessen the burden on the companies operating in the country. We also think that Beene would by this time be informing Zambians on any potential engagements with the government on how they could help companies survive this challenging terrain in order to help the workers.
It should be in Beene’s union’s interest for companies to be helped during this period in whatever format so that jobs are safeguarded. The help could be in the form of relaxed taxation for instance on various inputs and services to sustain company operations. If that is not done, jobs will be lost in the economy regardless of Beene’s best wishes. We all want everybody that is employed to remain employed but we shall reach a situation where this can no longer be sustained, especially that this load shedding is expected to last for a long period of time.
Instead of focusing on employing and maintaining labour, companies will be forced into a situation where they will have to start downsizing in order to stay afloat. This is a time when we should be hearing practical steps the government is taking to actually help companies in order to protect jobs in the economy as this is a matter that will not be addressed through wishful thinking.
We urge Beene, who is urging companies not to use load shedding to reduce their workforce, to quickly get the government to be proactive to avert job losses.
Related
By Daily Revelation Editor
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.
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.”
Beene has made some observations about how companies must ensure that they do not use what he describes as the excuse of load shedding to downsize on the workforce. Indeed companies must do all they can to preserve the few jobs in the market given the load shedding schedule. However, this may not be entirely possible because companies must operate in such a way that they can stay afloat, and it cannot be denied that this 8-hour load shedding regime will make that effort a little bit more tasking to achieve.
We appreciate Beene’s urge to the companies, but we would have thought that he would extend such advice to the government on how they can lessen the burden on the companies operating in the country. We also think that Beene would by this time be informing Zambians on any potential engagements with the government on how they could help companies survive this challenging terrain in order to help the workers.
It should be in Beene’s union’s interest for companies to be helped during this period in whatever format so that jobs are safeguarded. The help could be in the form of relaxed taxation for instance on various inputs and services to sustain company operations. If that is not done, jobs will be lost in the economy regardless of Beene’s best wishes. We all want everybody that is employed to remain employed but we shall reach a situation where this can no longer be sustained, especially that this load shedding is expected to last for a long period of time.
Instead of focusing on employing and maintaining labour, companies will be forced into a situation where they will have to start downsizing in order to stay afloat. This is a time when we should be hearing practical steps the government is taking to actually help companies in order to protect jobs in the economy as this is a matter that will not be addressed through wishful thinking.
We urge Beene, who is urging companies not to use load shedding to reduce their workforce, to quickly get the government to be proactive to avert job losses.
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