24/02/2023
Metal Mill Striking employees return to work
47 employees of the Metal Mill company in the Erongo region will be going back to work. This development follows a successful mediation process initiated by Hon. Neville Andre Itope, Governor of the Erongo region.
Metal Mill, provides engineering and maintenance services to Andrada's Uis mine through a long-term agreement.
The dispute regarding wages stems from when the employees jointly decided not to accept an additional 2-year extension of their contracts because their demands for the hourly wage rate to be increased to N$90p/h were rejected by their management at the end of last year. Metal Mills says, the demands equate to to an average increase of 118%, varying, between 31% and 480% of current employee packages.
According to the press statement released by Office of the Erongo Regional Governor today, the contracts were in line with the minimum wages for the Construction Industries Federation of Namibia and the Metal and Allied Namibian Workers Union as regulated by a collective agreement.
The statement further revealed that wages paid by Metal Mill were between 6% and 116% higher than those prescribed in the Federations collective agreement.
Itope, in his statements also shared observations on the Labour Relations Climate in the Region noted during his engagement with employees, such as, Non-adherence to conducive working relations of the work places, Intentional disregard for basic employment regulations, as well as the complete disregard for standing rules of engagements as it relates to collective bargaining principles, Non-compliances by employers to the basic employment conditions of employment and the Non-compliance to the Affirmative Action Act. The Office of the Governor strongly "condemns the deplorable state of labour Relations in the region." the statement reads.
11 of the Metal Mill striking employees will be re-employed immediately by the company, while Andrada has also agreed to absorb an additional 10 of the striking-47 into available vacancies in its engineering and maintenance department, while the remaining 16 will also be absorbed into non-artisanal jobs as of March 2023
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