Friday, March 29, 2024

Government kick starts the revision of labour laws

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Government has commenced the revision of labour laws in the country.

Ministry of Labour and Social Security Permanent Secretary Ngosa Chisupa told ZANIS in an interview today that the ministry has already tabled the Industrial and labour relations amendment bill before parliament to pave way for its amendment.

He said the revision of labour laws is on course and the tabling of the Industrial and Labour relations amendment bill in parliament on 20th March is only the starting point in the process of revising all labour laws in the country.

Mr. Chisupa said the bill was revised in consultation with all stakeholders and expressed hope that it will address contentious industrial and labour matters once amended.

Mr. Chisupa added that his ministry is happy that most of the companies in the country are complying with the revised minimum wage for employees.

He said the current K490, 000 wage for the lowest paid and K1.1 million for the highest paid has been complied with as indicated by inspections by the ministry’s inspectors.

Mr. Chisupa was reacting to calls from the International Labour Organisation that government should revise and modernise the country’s labour laws.

46 COMMENTS

  1. Miyoba. yu dont know what it takes to run a mine. Why dont you pay your maid more than the 100,000 you give her you rat! leave the chinese alone. Even government itself is a culprit.

  2. This issue of minimum wage is actually more complicated than meet the eye and the Govt is the biggest culprit as a huge chunk of their staff are way below. Labour wages are a function of supply and demand in the free market system. Basically it’s up to individuals to move in sectors where there is an under supply for their skills. Certainly there is an over supply in the maids sector and you just can’t pay wages for the sake of humanism. Rule of thumb is to keep your wage bill 15% of your earnings otherwise you will go bankrupt and if you are a govt, you will just have to run the printing press Zimbabwe style to keep afloat.

  3. Mutengo Waminga.why do you like attacking others just focus on the article anyway good to have you but sometimes you make me think that you dont think,you are useless

  4. Pls give him, you know he cleans old women’s ass in United States America, and faeces of this old women FYALIMUKOLA!!

  5. It appears the spirit that was hounding Miyoba has found a new and overzealous host with the same skin pigmentation and rantings as Anoymous an equally shameless Sata follower coconut. You cant even manage a chicken run for free range feeders and think one should pay more than K490,000 as government is suggesting? Let us be serious. The mine will go down. You know what will happen, there will be no Chibuku for you Miyoba because there will be no coal for Lusaka Beer. Maamba is not producing coal because they have no dump track.

  6. 8. dont be funny. I know more about your Zambian problems than you boss. Do you know how much a truck load of coal costs at Collum? No you dont. You are just sitted wasting manhours on that computer. Its because of people like you SIR that we left your country in droves.
    Such insults on me should have no place in Zambia, that is the same thinking that made us from become Diasporans and regard you as mad SIR. You are the fools Sir who sweat to push the camel through the eye of the needle, instead of just to needle the eye of an offending camel.

  7. Labour laws! yebo! Maybe they will pay us engineers K100, 000 per hour(Ok K80, 000 per hour is not a bad start)

  8. If a high School drop out can make K30,500 an hour @ a fast food joint or K57,000 an hour in an oil mine in Wyoming or construction. 100 pin per hour should not be too much to ask for a college graduate.

    I HOPE THE LABOUR LAWS CONSIDER ALL THIS!

  9. #13 I don’t think you can make that comparison. Find a Zambian case and make that your point of departure. Probably that fast food joint in the US has ROE higher than an engineering firm in Zambia and pure free market economy dictates that the under performing engineering firm should be closed down and workers sent home or pay low wages to stay in business. It’s about productivity and not status.

  10. While we are at it, could someone please enlighten me on salaries and wages in Zambia. Teachers, accountants, bankers, police officers, auditors, doctors, nurses, journalists, MPs, bus drivers, engineers, … etc. Government and private, how much do they take home?

  11. Mutengo Waminga, the search on internet does not show your profile. Be informed calling yourself a Professor and even including institutions which you did not study at against your name is a crime.

  12. A relative was making 3 to 4 million a moon as a manager at a parastatal firm.

    They Also owned a bus and paid the Driver K150,000 the Conductor is paid K100,000 or K200, 000 for the driver and he found hid on conductor

    Another accountant makes K1.9M straight from School and some start up company pays one guy K500,000 for marketing for them.

  13. A relative was making K3 to K4 million a moon as a manager at a parastatal firm.

    They Also owned a bus and paid the Driver K150,000 the Conductor was paid K100,000 or K200, 000 for the driver and he found his own conductor

    Another accountant makes K1.9M straight from School and some start up company pays one guy K500,000 for marketing for them.

  14. Lets hope things will work out this time arround and Hope that lagislature will come up with good and reasonable working conditions that will cover all aspect of work related incentives!
    We want result not just talking and pile up papers!action is all we need now. we tired of politicians raising us hopes and promises which they fail to deliver!
    I wish to comend the minister for pushing the issue to parliament!

  15. thank you bwana minister for pushing this issue to parliament but what we need now is action to be seen we dont want this issue to die a natural death or to be come a light at the end of some tunnel we need action mr minister we have really suffered enough as zambian workers it is also high time we should be protected from these monsters called investers some of us are workig in high profile companies with no conditions of service , any one who talks has his contract terminated bwana minister please wake up.

  16. Non of you guys have any right to comment. None of you you guys voted in the previous election so you have no right to voice your opinion because you didn’t vote. The govt won because majority wanted them and so they’ll do what majority wanted them to do. If the majority didn’t like what the govt was doing then they wouldn’t have won but majority trusts the govt so the govt should do what the majority wants them to do. You guys are all abroad and didn’t vote in the previous election so you have no right to comment. If you want to change things then campaign in the next election and win. Otherwise if you didn’t vote then don’t comment.

  17. What are you #22 Crazy

    Don’t tell me that you have not seen the internet in Zed.

    People own cyber cafes and also use internet at work.

    Zambia may be a long way from being a developed country but, we have the internet and we contribute to this blog. As for running for public office, I am deciding what is the best way to contribute the national growth

  18. #24
    Zambia has already failed us. We have lost faith in it. While other countries move forward in Southern Africa, Zambia still remains steps behind. Look at how forward Malawi, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia and Angola are moving forward yet Zambia still remains behind. Whats there to under estimate when Zambia has already dissapointed our estimations. If anything, we over estimate it. Zimbabwe is in an economic decline yet Harare still looks better than lusaka. Bulawayo is 10 years ahead of Ndola or Kitwe.

  19. You are right Crazy,

    But whose side are you on! Let us propose solutions to this uneconomical situation we are in.

    WHAT IDEAS DO YOU AND ME HAVE THAT CAN HELP CATCH UP OR OVERTAKE SOUTH AFRICA????????????????????????????????

  20. #26
    My idea is first of all bring about a relocation program. Lusaka and the Copperbelt oare overcrowded and cannot support there large populations. I think people who are inactive or live in compound areas should be relocated to other towns along the line of rail where they can take part in farming and make inactive small towns into bigger busy cities.

  21. THE WAY FORWARD

    1. INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IS NEEDED
    2. ACCESS TO LOANS FOR FEASIBLE BUSINESS PLANS
    3. COME HOME AND INVEST AFTER YOUR LONG ABSENCE
    4. HAVE HOPE AND ACT ACCORNDINLY(Run for public office, become an employer, attract invetors etc.)

  22. Second, make interest rates low so as to inhance borrowing and also tax breaks in the industries like manufacturing and agriculture. If manufacturing industries and agriculture industries had tax breaks, this would enhance production mostly because these industries employ about 50 to 500 people, 50 if working below capacity, 500 or more if working efficiently.

  23. I like the farming idea.

    My question is are you personally willing to go to Mubwa and establish a commercial farm?

  24. Third and final is, no industry can work if it has no market. Peharps a bit of exploitation is to be in place if Zambia is to develop. Im talking about looking for market outside Zambia. This could be done by distribution companies. These companies would buy from Zambia, and sell in another country like Namibia. For example, Zimbabwe is in need of fuel and mealie meal. Maybe instead of exporting maize, we should have been exporting mealie meal since it is a finished product. But the govt will never take up such an initiative so its up to a private company to carry this out.

  25. Right on Crazy # 29

    You know what, I once went to the ZNBS(Building Society) to inquire about morgages. I was shocked that the interest rates were above 30% and I had to provide some big asset as surity.

    IF WE CAN LOWER INTEREST RATES THEN WE CAN MOVE FORWARD!

  26. #30
    I do not know anything about farming. What i want to start however is a distribution company. It will take years before Zimbabwe will recover from its economic recession and i plan to take advantage of this. Zimbabwe will nead a lot of things especially in terms of groceries and i plan to buy from Zambia and sell in Zimbabwe. This will enhance production for Zambian industries and companies.

  27. MY HOMEWORK FOR YOU IS TO ASK YOU TO EMAIL YOUR IDEAS TO THE MINISTER OF COMMERCE OR FINANCE AND NATIONAL PLANNING.

    ASK THE MINISTER TO CONTRACT ACTUALISTS TO CONDUCT SURVEYS AND ECONOMIST TO INDETIFY SPECIFIC INDUSTRIES TO BE STARTED AND I MORE THAN TWO THIRDS OF OUR PLOBLEMS WILL GO AWAY.

  28. We all cannot be farmers but, if you say we need more farms, which we do, You should encourage someone to do it

    We have to do these things rather than hope that someone else will do them. Maybe start giving loans to farmers from you distribution business

  29. Real Zambian
    Why would the Minister of Commerce listen to someone who is doing an undergrad in Economics when he has got doctrates and Masters degrees and experience. They would never listen to me. Maybe if you emailed my ideas he would listen because i think you are in the best position to tell him since you’re working. Im just a college boy. Besides it’ll be 1 against about 150 ministers. Why would my voice count. I would be wasting my time.

  30. Prof waminga katwishi LLM,MMD,MA PHD(CHAINAMA)i really couldn’t believe how an educated man like you can fail to reason.If the Chinese are still operating collum mine it means it’s profitable as for the wages they should know much it will cost to run a mine and provide protective clothing for the safety of it’s workers.The Chinese should have known that,at some point raisin salaries for it’s workers was very cardinal….If its not profitable enough then let them close and spare innocent lives of our Zambian brothers rather than raise a concern for their money to buy chibuku.

  31. The labour laws exclude maids, soldiers, civil servants and most people operating in the informal economy including bus drivers and conductors. So, the minimum wage does not apply to everybody in the economy.

  32. You guys! This minimum wage issue can neva work for all organizations because most of them are actually struggling to make profits that will help them to increase their employees Salaries. The other issue is that of the level of education in this country which is delaying progress in most of these organizations. Imagine an employee who has no formal education at all being given a Salary of K 1100000.00 and is not performing according to expectations. That in all is a big expense to an organization. Thus the need for performance based pay or increments so that employees can become more serious with their work and earn money according to the hours the put in.

  33. A minimum wage Mutengo, whatever you are called, helps to alleviate problems esp. brought by chinese employers.These guys come from countries without such conditions.You talk of running a mine, chicken run, come on don’t embrass us pls.I’m just abit worried coz the unions are supposed to be the ones pushing for this and there is no mention of them.I know FTJ paralized them but what issues are they going to push.These chinese need very stringent policies/laws otherwise we will chase them.They need to be regulated and checked by the unions.For my pal mutengo, I’m ex-miner don’t teach me about mining, been there done that.

  34. Mutengo Waminga, you surprise me because you sound not a zambian and don’t know how miners suffers in the hands of Indians, Chinese and S.A Boars. So better keep quiet.

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