WORKERS at diamond-mining firms in the Marange area of Manicaland said they feared for the security of their jobs as they were no longer receiving regular salaries while their workers’ unions are not recognised by the mining companies.
Edgar Gweshe OWN CORRESPONDENT
Zimbabwe Diamonds and Allied Workers Union president, Cosmas Sunguro, alleged that most of the companies in diamond mining in Marange were reneging as far as timely payments of workers’ salaries were concerned.
The development, he said, had relegated most of the workers into abject poverty as some of them are going for months without pay.
Sunguro said that the situation had been compounded by victimisation of workers which has made workers’ committees redundant.
“At the moment, diamond workers in the country are gripped with fear and uncertainty due to a number of reasons,” Sunguro said.
“Some of the diamond companies are not honouring their obligations to pay workers on time. At Anjin Investments, some workers have gone for almost two months without pay while at Marange Resources, workers only got paid at the end of May after having gone for almost three months without pay.
“The workers were only paid half of what they were being owed,” Sunguro said.
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He said at Anjin Investments, some workers were sent on forced, unpaid leave two months ago.
This, he said, had created uncertainty among the workers on whether they would be able to get their outstanding salaries from the company.
Sunguro said government’s recent announcement that it planned to scale down on the number of diamond mining companies in Chiadzwa after most of them failed to account for revenue realised from the sale of diamonds, had created a high sense of uncertainty.
The companies have also come under attack for failing to honour their obligations to the Marange-Zimunya Community Share Ownership Scheme.
“The other problem is that the employers are failing to honour their obligations to pay their workers yet victimisation is very high. This has forced many workers to keep quiet while their rights at the workplace are being violated.
“Workers’ unions are very much ineffective at most of the companies and in some instances, you have a situation whereby the workers are addressed as individuals. So workers are living in fear and that is why their rights are being continuously violated,” Sunguro said.
