THE National Union of Quarry Workers has accused management at Freda Gold Mine in Gwanda of throwing out 30 retrenched workers from the mine’s compound after paying them paltry retrenchment packages ranging between $25 and $1 300 each.
Report by Silas Nkala
The union organising secretary Onious Munenga said: “Affected workers told us today (yesterday) that mine security personnel chucked them out of the houses saying they were no longer mine workers. Most of the workers got between $25 and $300 and only two highly-paid workers got $1 300. Management had misled us that it was dealing with the contract workers only for us to discover that six permanent workers were among the retrenches.”
Munenga said efforts to engage the mine management to resolve the matter had hit a snag as managing director Innocent Gona allegedly kept deferring meeting his union members.
“Workers are owed thousands of dollars in back pay as they were all along paid a minimum of $150 per month instead of $175 stipulated by NEC (National Employment Council),” he said.
The company reportedly employs at least 170 workers.
However, Gona yesterday denied the alleged evictions and accused Munenga of rushing to the Press before exhausting other channels of communication.
“There is no one being evicted from the compound and if that is happening it could be some contract workers, not our (permanent) workers,” Gona said.
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“We do not know why he (Munenga) is doing this. Why did he rush to the media before meeting the management? That is not fair.”
