PLATFORM for Youth Development (PYD) Trust has accused Green Fuels’ of victimising several workers who embarked on industrial action at the Chisumbanje ethanol plant to protest against non-payment of salaries.
BY SILENCE CHARUMBIRA
The company allegedly laid off 25 drivers in June after they had protested non-payment of salaries for five months.
PYD director Claris Madhuku on Thursday said they were worried by the level of intimidation that workers were allegedly going through for claiming their dues.
“Government is definitely not doing enough to protect the workers. We have cases of over 700 workers that we are handling that were unlawfully treated and the government is aware, but they have not done anything about it,” Madhuku said.
“We have done advocacy but we are worried that they are not doing enough. That is why we begin to speculate that there are some political players behind the operations of the company.”
He said they used to engage company management over the workers’ grievances but former energy minister Dzikamai Mavhaire allegedly blocked them when he was appointed to the post.
One former Green Fuels driver Simbarashe Makumbe said he joined the company in October 2014 and left last month, but alleged he was never paid for his services.
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“I was fired last month but during my time at the company I was never paid a single penny. I only got about $600 in instalments after I had left. When I was fired they did not give me a notice they just said my contract had expired,” he said.
“The only meaningful contribution the company made was when I was being sued for default of maintenance by one of my three wives and they wrote a letter confirming that I was not being paid at work.”
Some of the workers said they were not allowed to join workers unions.
“The workers were not allowed to move around in groups of more than three. They are also discriminated against on racial lines as whites with the same qualifications are well paid and get their salaries on time. They have good houses, but blacks live in squalors,” Madhuku alleged.
Colonel Robson Shumba, an executive at the organisation referred the questions to the human resources department.
But Andrew King the head of human resources at the company yesterday refused to comment.
“You will have to contact the headquarters. We are not allowed to comment from the site,” he said.
Phones at the company’s headquarters went unanswered yesterday.
