By MOFFAT CHAZINGWA and  MUNAMBEZA MUWANEI –
FOTRY-SEVEN employees at Zambezi Portland in Ndola have been laid off while a further 63 are earmarked for retrenchment.
The redundancies are due to reduction in business volume at the cement manufacturing company, which is now faced with stiff competition from the newly commissioned Dangote Cement Plant.
Zambezi Portland Cement operations director Danielle Ventriglia confirmed the retrenchment yesterday and said the affected workers had been paid their benefits amountiing to K1.6 million.
Mr Ventriglia said the retrenchments were necessitated by economic reasons and that the company would maintain a lean workforce.
“It is true that we have retrenched some workers. This is due to the economic reasons rather than closing down,” Mr Ventriglia said.
He said the company was also working towards reclaiming the market share and had reduced the cement price from K66 to 52.
Another 63 workers are expected to be retrenched in the next six weeks and the company would remain with a total workforce of 340 employees.
Mr Ventriglia said the union was informed about the company’s decision to lay off the workers.
But Mineworkers Union of Zambia (MUZ) general secretary Joseph Chewe and United Mineworkers Union of Zambia (UMUZ) president Wisdom Ngwira said Zambezi Portland management did not follow laid-down procedure in conducting the redundancies and demanded the immediate reinstatement of the affected workers.
Mr Chewe said Zambezi Portland management laid off the workers without due regard to the labour law that required a company engaging in redundancies to give 60 days’ notification to the Labour commissioner as well as notifying the unions as the affected employees were represented.
“Our concern is that the law on redundancy clearly states what one is supposed to do before laying off workers and now Zambezi Portland, big a company as it is, went ahead to lay off workers without writing to the Labour commissioner giving 60 days’ notice, and also they did not notify us thereby abrogating the labour laws,” Mr Chewe said.
He said the two unions had tried to engage Zambezi Portland to reverse their decision so that proper channels could be followed, even to allow stakeholders to explore the means of how to mitigate the problem but this had been in vain.
Mr Chewe called for the Government’s intervention in the matter because all investors should be seen to be operating within the laws of the land with regard to the labour law.
Mr Ngwira equally expressed disappointment with Zambezi Portland for their decision to lay off workers without first engaging relevant stakeholders such as the unions and the Government with the view to exploring possible solutions to the challenges facing the company.