WHAT a difference a week can make! The bloodbath that has seen over 700 workers lose their jobs in Zimbabwe since last Friday is proof positive, if any was needed, that the Supreme Court’s ruling that employers can terminate workers’ contracts after giving them three months’ notice without offering an explanation, or taking the retrenchment route, has shaken labour relations to the core. And we are still counting as there seems to be no let-up.
By Conway Tutani
This is a landmark ruling from the previous employee-friendly laws. Labour minister Prisca Mupfumira and Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions secretary-general Japhet Moyo expressed deep concern — and quite rightly so because their constituents now have the axe permanently hovering over their heads. Both parties held a crisis meeting this week under the auspices of the Tripartite Negotiating Forum.
Conspicuous by its absence was the Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe (Emcoz), the employers’ umbrella body, saying “we could not make it at the short notice given by the (Labour) ministry”. Surely, given the urgency of the matter, they could have at the very least sent a representative. This was sad, but predictable. This is an organisation in which some of the members — in fact, too many of them — had, prior to the Supreme Court ruling last week, been routinely abusing the long court process to financially and emotionally drain suspended and fired employees from claiming rightful terminal benefits and damages following unfair dismissals and other forms of victimisation. People simply gave up because of the costly, laborious process. So, these are not new games.
This is not to say workers do not deserve to be fired under any circumstances. Incompetent, lazy, thieving employees — and there are many of them — must be fired, but procedurally. There are many good employers out there in spite of or despite Emcoz. They are struggling together with their workers. They are in it together. Internal walls are torn down. Everyone has access to company books to avoid both shareholders and stakeholders being misled with disastrous consequences. Only this week Japanese electronics firm Toshiba CEO Hisao Tanaka was forced to step down over a US$1,2 billion accounting scandal involving top management in which he overstated operating profits over seven years.
And we know that some firms cannot be revived and some jobs cannot be saved because technological advances have made them redundant, but parting of ways must still be fair and just.
Now Emcoz holds all the cards — thanks to the Supreme Court. This raises questions about workplace protections. Now some employers are on a mission to fire willy-nilly. They are not “wasting” any minute, any second with their new-found power. Is it a case of a weapon falling into the wrong hands — like Boko Haram who think nothing of gunning down and bombing civilians indiscriminately, without let or hindrance, without compunction? It seems workers in Zimbabwe — like civilians in Nigeria under constant threat from Boko Haram — are now completely at the mercy of employers.
It’s necessary to name and shame those companies that have exercised indecent haste to wield the axe: Sino-Zimbabwe Cotton, Econet Wireless, Zimoco, Steward Bank, TN Asset Management, TN Harlequin and Pelhams, among the growing list. Do they not have feelings of guilt that haunt one when one does something bad? Or moral scruples that prevent one from doing something bad in the first place?
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In these tumultuous times, especially the past 15 years when Zimbabwe plunged into a freefall, many people completely lost faith in the politicians — and quite justifiably so — and we looked to the business sector to fill the void. But we should also be mindful of the limitations and excesses of business, some of which can be severe and damaging.
Most successful entrepreneurs and executives benefit from their single-minded focus on creating wealth, and when talking about their businesses, they do so with passion that is not misplaced. You can’t take that away from them because not everyone is that visionary. If you parachute somebody without vision into a thriving company, it will fold in no time at all and jobs will be lost and livelihoods destroyed. Let’s not downplay the value of individual ability and capacity to steer an organisation to defy gravity by rising when other firms are sinking right before our eyes. Let’s give credit where it’s due. Some executives have almost single-handedly lifted companies from collapse. The nation is the richer for them. Archer Clothing Manufacturers in Bulawayo is a case in point in a sector besieged by cheap, second-hand imports.
But when discussing society’s broader issues, company bosses are too often simplistic, uninformed and narrow, and they rarely understand that government’s stakeholders — the overwhelming majority of the people it is elected and mandated to serve — have different interests from their own company’s shareholders, who are but a tiny dot compared to the nation at large. Moreover, executives tend to be authoritarian, and are often very intolerant of contrary opinions. In these days of the new world order, almost everyone believes people have a right to vote for those who lead them, at least in national affairs. But democracy has yet to penetrate the workplace. Dictators and despots are alive and well in offices and factories all over the world.
Lee Iacocca, now aged 90, the charismatic American motor industry executive best known for spearheading the development of the Ford Mustang while at the Ford Motor Company in the 1960s, and then later for reviving the Chrysler Corporation during the 1980s, was one CEO who recognised his limitations. He flirted briefly with the idea of running for the United States Presidency. In the end, he decided against it after realising he would never have the patience to deal with Congress (US equivalent of Parliament). Compromising to reach consensus wasn’t his strong point or strength. He came drastically short in that department.
Furthermore, markets in or of themselves are not the magic bullet. They are not the universal solution. Taken on their own, they can make a bad situation worse. We should not sacrifice all on the altar of markets. “. . . we must recognise that markets are messy —frequently overshooting or undershooting desired targets — and that it is ordinary working people, not investors, bankers and business leaders, who suffer most when they do,” writes eminent US editor Norman Pearlstine. When — not if — that happens, the government must — not should — assume its role in protecting society’s most vulnerable — not necessarily weakest — members from the markets’ excesses while at the same time not thwarting the entrepreneurial spirit. Getting that balance right is a challenge for the threesome of business, government and workers’ unions.
This is where employers are called upon to come into their own, to rise to the occasion, to be useful and of assistance. Not be like Emcoz director John Mufukare who could only say: “The Supreme Court has made a ruling and, as always, we will abide by the law.”
That’s expediency and narrowness at its worst. That’s not good and responsible enough. That cannot be the end of the story. After all, life — including court rulings — is work in progress.
In this day and age, workers cannot be completely at the mercy of employers. This is akin to modern-day slavery.
No time must be wasted in stopping the bloodbath of job losses.
