Xin Yu Mining Company operates at 6597 Halifax Road, Gweru Heavy Industrial sites and employs 64 locals.
The company, which started operating last year, is into smelting of chrome and falls under the Ferro Alloy Industry. Workers committee chairperson, Gwinyai Makaripe, and seven other workers dragged the company to court in November last year and arbitrator P.R.T Muchirawehondo ordered the company to correct its conduct. But to date nothing has changed.
The company responded by making an application for exemption from implementing the National Employment Council wage scales. This was rejected by the Exemption Committee.
In the Arbitration court papers in possession of The Zimbabwean , the workers said they raised the matter of underpayment and disregard for workers grades as outlined in the Ferro Alloy Bargaining Agreement (CBA), but their Chinese employers simply ignored the problem.
The workers also pointed out that they work every day shifts of 12 hours, which is unlawful.
“The applicants perform a range of different tasks and as such should be in different grades which entail different wage scales,” said the workers in the arbitration papers.
In defence, the Chinese said the long hours worked were to maximise production, and the workers were given food hampers to supplement their wages.
The firm also indicated that it was facing viability problems and wanted to pay back loans taken to finance production.
“We do not know what to do because the Chinese have not respected the law and our situation continues to worsen,” a worker at the company plant told this newspaper.
In March this year, a tour by Mines Deputy Minister Gift Chimanikire discovered that Chinese mining firms in general were oppressing local workers and the majority of them were operating unlawfully without the required papers.
Post published in: News