OVER 55 workers at Wattle Company and Vumba plant premises in Mutare yesterday fought running battles with police after they stormed their employer’s offices demanding outstanding salaries for the past year.
BY KENNETH NYANGANI
The workers claimed they were owed $300 000 and wanted to see the company’s manager Amos Dziko who had promised to pay them three months’ salary by yesterday.
But Dziko vanished as the workers stormed his office demanding their dues. The company’s management later called riot police to disperse the workers.
“We have not been paid for 12 months and all along we have been coming to work. I think the wage bill at the moment is now over $300 000,” said workers’ committee chairman Maxwell Nyarango.
“On Monday the manager (Dziko) promised to pay us the following day (yesterday) our three months salaries. But when we arrived we went straight to the human resources department, but the manager could not come out of his offices this is when all the skirmishes started,” he said.
“I don’t know why the police intervened because they will not solve anything for us. We need our money. It is too much now because these people (company management) are used to lying and we are not happy at all about it.”
Nyarango and his committee members were yesterday summoned for a meeting at Mutare Central Police Station over the skirmishes. Dziko could not be reached for comment at the time of going to print.
