AT least 30 Air Zimbabwe retrenchees stormed the airline’s headquarters in Harare yesterday demanding their packages and outstanding salaries.
BY PAIDAMOYO MUZULU
The struggling airline last year retrenched 270 employees following a Supreme Court ruling that allowed employers to terminate permanent employees contracts on three months’ notice without compensation.
However, the government quickly intervened and amended the law to allow for the payment of a minimum retrenchment package.
The demonstrating ex-workers said the airline had reneged on their National Employment Council (NEC)-brokered payment plan.
“The company had been paying us our packages in monthly instalments since November 2015, but in June it only paid us 50% of our dues and in July we received nothing,” Livingstone Chikaura said.
“The agreement, reached at NEC after the company said it could not afford paying one lump sum, was for it to pay amounts owed over a 12-month period. However, the company for the past two months has failed to honour its commitment.”
The retrenched workers also accused Air Zimbabwe of owing them large sums of money in outstanding salaries.
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Both Air Zimbabwe’s acting chief executive Edmund Makona and board chairperson Chipo Dyanda were unreachable for comment.
Government has pledged to assume the airline’s $300 million debt to enable it to start on a clean slate.
The airline is currently only servicing three regional routes to Zambia’s Lusaka, Johannesburg in South Africa and Tanzania’s Dar-es-Salaam.
