Story by Theophilus Chuma
The government is working on amending the Labour Act to protect retrenched workers through a minimum package for affected employees.
This is in line with a commitment to upholding the fundamental rights of employees and effecting international obligations under the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
According to the government, the Labour Act, which came as a response to protect employees from a three-month termination notice after a Supreme Court ruling in the Zuva case in 2015, was silent on the issue of a retrenchment package, hence the proposal to amend the existing legislation.
“When a person is being retrenched from employment, the Labour Act should protect the employee. We have a clause that we thought the amended act was going to address, but, unfortunately, it was not there and again the minimum retrenchment package is going to be attended to. Meanwhile, we will gazette a statutory instrument on the minimum retrenchment package because we have so many retrenchment cases before the retrenchment board,” said Mr Simon Masanga, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare.
The amendment of the document is already at an advanced stage with expectations the new guidelines will be ready by June of next year.
“We have come up with principles to amend the Act which have already been submitted to cabinet. By mid-next year we should be able to tighten the two missing links.”
Within the last five years, the government has rolled out several reforms in the labour market aimed at protecting employees from unfair practices.
Under the National Development Strategy One, there is close collaboration with the International Labour Organisation to strengthen the Labour Market Information System to improve market skills and information.
