SAPWU STRIKE ACTION AT CROOKS LIMITED COME TO END

Workers listening to leaders speeches (file Picture)

Written by Fundizwi Sikhondze

A strike action that had run for close to a full month at agriculture plantation Crooks Limited recently ended with an agreement between the company and workers organised under the Swaziland Agricultural ,Plantations And Allied Workers Union (SAPWU).

The strike action came after protracted negotiations that were threatening to spill over a new financial year. The end of the strike ,according to the SAPWU President Malungisa Dlamini ,came after intervention efforts by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.

Amongst the issues agreed by the two parties were the following;

6.5% salary increase backdated to April 2023.
Increase in education allowance from E1,800.00 to E1,900.00.
increase in food rations for cane cutters from four (4) rations per month to six (6) rations.
Freedom to take leave when needs arise instead of only being allowed to take leave at scheduled periods (at employers convenience)

Social facilities such as shops need to be provided since shops are over 15 kilometres away

Issues where the parties pledged to continue engagements on include the following;

Severance Allowance - There is a 20 days per year severance for workers who have worked for more than 20 years (legally 10 days are prescribed).
Clear promotions criteria and processes
Demand for gratuity
Transport for workers home and to the shops since the farm is far from social amenities like shops.
Work transport needs to be suitable for human transport.

A new season of negotiations for the year 2024 is set to commence as of this month, April 2024 and more reports on this issue will be made in due course by this publication.

Comments

SNAT PRESIDENT MBONGWA DLAMININ HAS BEEN FIRED BY THE ESWATINI GOVERMENT

Picture: SNAT President Mbongwa Dlamini (Image courtesy of SNAT platform) As of Wednesday 30th September 2023 the President of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) Mbongwa Ernest Dlamini (pictured above) has been fired by the Teaching Services Commission (TSC) of the Ministry of Education on behalf of the Government of Eswatini. These news were announced by the SNAT Secretary General Lot Gadaffi Vilakati in the morning of the 30th August 2023 in Mbabane. Comrade Lot announced the unfortunate news to scores of workers that had gathered at the Ministry of Public Service office block for a protest organised by the Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) to decry the shortage of health workers and key medicines in the public health system in Mbabane. Secretary General Lot added that SNAT will stick with the president through and through and that if the government was fatally mistaken if they thought president Mbongwa would be discarded or disowned by SNAT now that he

ATUSWA'S WANDER MKHONZA CALLS FOR MORE ATTENTION ON SWAZILAND

ATUSWA Secretary General Comrade Wander Mkhonza addressing the IndustriALL Mid Term Policy Conference in Capetown ,South Africa (Picture courtesy of IndustriALL) Written by Fundizwi Sikhondze The Amalgamated Trade Union of Swaziland (ATUSWA) Secretary General Comrade Wander Mkhonza ,on Tuesday 20th June 2023, addressed the midterm policy conference of the IndustriALL Global Union currently sitting in Cape Town, South Africa where he called for more attention to be bestowed to the repressed workers in Swaziland by the global union. ATUSWA together with the Swaziland Electricity Supply and Maintenance Workers Union (SESMAWU) are the two Swaziland affiliates of the IndustriALL Global Union. Secretary General Wander drew the conference's attention to the repression that workers face in Swaziland through state repression as well as through the courts. He credited the notorious 1973 decree as the source of the repression in the country to the extent that even when laws are crafted an es

NAPSAWU HAS SUSPENDED THREE NATIONAL OFFICE BEARERS

Written by Staff Reporter The National Public Service and Allied Workers Union (NAPSAWU) National General Council (NGC) ,on Thursday 15 th February 2024, suspended three of its National Office Bearers (NOBs), two of whom are believed to be principal officers. Principal Officers number up to three in trade unions and are the President, General Secretary and the Treasurer. The suspension of two of them may therefore demonstrate the seriousness of the matter just barely six months since the current NOBS took office in August 2023. The suspension of the trio is reported to have come after it had been discovered that they were one way or another involved in alleged misappropriation of undisclosed NAPSAWU funds believed to amounting to more than one hundred thousand and seventy thousands (more than E170 000) emalangeni. The funds according to reliable sources are believed to have been approved funds for union activities but were later discovered to have been diverted into personal acco

Eswatini Labour Insight

Search This Blog