Miners at the Chinese Collume Coal Mine (CCM) have gone on strike demanding an increment of salaries which they said it was too low compared to the work they were being subjected to do.
However, CCM shaft two Director Xu said he would not effect an increment that the workers were demanding because he increased it last year.
One worker kalaluka Nyambe said the workers have decided to go on strike until their Union enters negotiations with the CCM management to have their salaries increased.
Nkandabbwe ward Councilor Patson Mangunje had a turf time to try and talk to workers to go back for work while he assisted them in contacting their Union representatives to resolve the labour disputes with Management.
Mr. Mangunje told the workers that their grievance was genuine but they have to wait for their Union representatives to talk to management before they embarked on a strike.
He told them that it was difficult at the moment to address their situation since the workers belonged to two Unions Mines Workers Union of Zambia (MUZ) and Gemstone and Allied Workers Union of Zambia (GAWUZ).
He said GAWUZ President Sifuniso Nyumbu has problems with the management as they could not dialogue with him over labour disputes.
On Thursday Confrontation of words erupted between GAWUZ President Nyumbu and the Chinese Collum Coal Mine (CCM) Management in Sinazeze in Sinazongwe district over the workers representation.
The Chinese nationals openly rejected Mr. Nyumbu as the representative of the workers and accused him to have ordered the workers to stone them when one miner died on Monday.
GAWUZ President Nyumbu told CCM Shaft Two Management that he signed an agreement to have the workers salaries increased to K600, 000 across board but they have failed to implement it.
The workers claimed that Mr Nyumbu told them to go on strike if management failed to increase their salaries.
CCM Shaft two Director said Xu Zian Qun the workers have a habit demanding for an increment of salaries each time the company was faced with problem .
“ How can you work like this when each time you a problem you demand for an increament this time I will not increase their salaries,” Mr Zian Said.
Mr. Zian said he was following the Zambian law and the lowest paid gets K104 per day while the highly paid workers get K15,000 per day.
Meanwhile the Senior Inspector of Mines under the Ministry of Mine Mr. Lubinda Kamutumwa has recommended that the portion in the tunnel where an accident occurred on Monday in which one person died should be permanently closed.
Mr. Lubinda said that the rock formation in the tunnel was in a bad state and water was sipping through it as a result of heavy rains that the district has been experiencing.
He said the support that they had put in the tunnel was not adequate to prevent rocks from falling.
[ZANIS]
Congratulations for going on strike to save your lives. Zambia has no government and it is now each man for himself, and God for us all. This is what Levy has been teaching us all since he was put into state house by the OP on Chiluba’s orders.
I dont’t understand this!Is it really Zambian law to award the lowest pay at K104 a day?If indeed this is true,then we are barking at the wrong tree.Is any reader conversant with the Zambian labour laws.I beg your contribution.
Our labour laws are pathetic,hence so many abuses of workers by employers! Employers today in Zambian are an touchable and bossy! they have taken advantage of the unemployment situation and the cheap labour with its pathetic Laws!
I feel that most of the legislatures own campanies en e employers hence them comming up with stupid minimum wages!Investor have found it so easy to invest in our country,coz they are told by our gvt that theres cheap labour.
Even briefcase investors can afford.
The gvt denies its own civil servant resonable pay while the tops award themselves with alot of allowances,shame on you!
One day we will be in power and clean all this mess!Zambians demonstrate peacfuly
My next career will be a prison guard, where feeding MMD prisoners will be a pleasure. Salty water with sand coated dry bread for breakfast and lunch! Levy will be fed rotten maize meal with maggots flooting in suup.
Criminals deserve no mercy. Time is on the side of the oppressed. OP will be disbanded, and all those responsible for electoral fraud that produced mmd in 2001 will be evacuated to mukobeko for holidays.