AT LEAST 50 National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) locomotive drivers staged a sit-in at their employer’s Mpopoma offices in Bulawayo yesterday demanding payment of salaries outstanding for the past seven months.
Report by Pamela Mhlanga
The railwaymen claimed they were owed about $13 000 each in salary arrears.
Railway Association of Enginemen secretary-general Wilmore Muzah told NewsDay that all the locomotive drivers had downed tools and refused to go back to work until their grievances were addressed.
“We have stopped working and things are at a standstill,” he said.
“We want management to address our plight and if nothing is done about that, the situation will continue and things will become worse.”
He said their salary arrears started accumulating in July last year. “We are owed an average of $9 000 per person in salaries for the eight months and we are also owed allowances close to $4 000 each and these date back to 2009,” Muzah said.
Juniel Manyere, a union member accused NRZ of treating workers unfairly.
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“We find this situation unjust and unfair,” he said.
“Why should we not get paid when we come to work everyday? We work hard as we run six trains per day as compared to the two trains we were running in 2009.”
Manyere said management had been reluctant to address the issue and released “misleading Press statements instead”.
“They are turning us into slaves and we cannot work for nothing,” he said.
“They keep on saying they do not have the money to pay us, but until when?
“It is either they fire all of us and shut down NRZ or they give us our salaries.”
Last week, wives of railway employees staged a demonstration at the NRZ headquarters in Bulawayo demanding salaries of their spouses. Following the demonstration, NRZ management were quoted in the State media as saying the parastatal had started paying its workers in full. The striking workers were also demanding a safe working environment.
“Enginemen are on the receiving end of any mishap in the operations of the trains,” one worker said.
Contacted for comment, NRZ general manager Mike Karakadzai confirmed the sit-in which he said was countrywide, but denied allegations that the parastatal was in salary arrears.
“I have heard there was a sit in countrywide as workers were disgruntled over late and staggered salaries, health and safety issues and methods of running trains,” he said.
“The problem started when the country changed from the local currency to other currencies, with most companies failing to operate.
Companies have no business and thus the money they bring to the company is little, so we cannot pay our workers full salaries. They have been getting their salaries in a cycle of six or eight weeks.
Every employee is getting a 100% of the net salary.”
It could not be established to what extent the sit-in had affected the parastatal’s operations yesterday.
