Workers' leaders dismissed, repatriated after strike

I somehow managed to miss Wednesday’s editorial in the Times of Zambia. The comment piece in the state-sponsored paper draws almost exactly the opposite lessons from the strike at Onshore Construction Company in Chingola than those I wrote about in a long blog yesterday.

The editorial does confirm that not all those workers returning to India are doing so voluntarily. In a classic union-busting tactic, so easy for employers under Zambia's labour legislation, 24 Onshore workers have been forcibly sent back to their country of origin, after being charged with gross misconduct and inciting fellow employees to strike.

The Times seems principally concerned not for the rights of Indian workers or the affect of hiring unprotected foreign labourers on the relative terms and conditions of Zambians, but that by protesting the workers caused ‘disruption’!

“While we sympathise with the workers and indeed management at Onshore, we feel dialogue should have been given a chance by both sides. The workers should have sought audience with their employers to discuss their grievances before abandoning their work stations.” The paper’s own reports over previous days makes it perfectly clear this had already happened. Furthermore, the failure of dialogue reflects the problems not of the attitudes of workers, but of Zambian labour rights legislation. Without the ability to form unions and be officially represented, and with the likelihood that any worker principled and brave enough to step forward as a representative will be sacked and repatriated for making trouble, industrial relations will inevitably prove fractious and disorderly.

The editorial does contain one semi-decent proposal. “In future, companies engaging foreign workers must be forced to display their signed contracts between the employer and the employee. This is to protect the hired labourers so that they are not duped and the employer against arm-twisting tactics to press for what was not in the original contract.”