Hotel, Catering, Tourism and Allied Workers Union rejects redundancy notices served on members

The Hotel, Catering, Tourism and Allied Workers Union of Zambia, (HCTAWUZ) has rejected the redundancy notice letters which had been given to some of their members by management.

Union General-Secretary, Leviticus Mwanza, said it was evident that the provisions of section 55 of the Employment Code of Act number 3 of 2019 were not followed to the latter.

This is contained in a letter of complaint written to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Labour Commissioner, Givens Muntengwa, dated Friday, 5, 2024.

Mwanza said the union was not accorded an opportunity to consult or mitigate on the measures which were undertaken by the employer.

“We wish to put it on record to say we have only had one meeting where we did not exhaust our deliberations and we officially requested for time to engage in wider consultations,” he stated.

Mwanza said unfortunately management declined to give the union the opportunity and categorically stated that they were going to proceed with the programme as they had already prepared all the relevant documents/calculations.

He added that the Union had been left to speculate that the meeting which occured on Monday, 18, March, 2024 was a mere academic exercise since Management already had a predetermined decision.

“We strongly believe that we were not fully engaged and this is due to the fact that management has already prepared the notice letters and calculated the redundancy packages without engaging their representatives of the affected employees,” Mwanza said.

He noted that the provisions of the Act allowed the parties to engage through genuine bipartie engagements with the view of negotiating for better packages than the prescribed minimum redundancy payments/packages.

Mwanza requested that management to reconsider its decision and withdraw all the redundancy notice letters which were initially given to the affected employees to allow the parties to effectively engage and agree on possible measures and terms.

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“We strongly believe it is essential for management to recognize and respect the role of trade Unions play in as far as members representation is concerned,” he advised.

Mwanza said that the act by management which required the concerned parties to effectively engage had great potential to ignite industrial disharmony.

He said the union had on several occasions tried to engage both the employers as well as the Board of Directors of Mulungushi with the view of resolving the impasse but to no avail.

“It is therefore against this background that we formally write to your office to request for your intervention as we believe the rights of the employees have not been respected,” Mwanza stated.

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