PRESS STATEMENT
3rd February 2020
BY NOT PAYING WORKERS PF IS INTRODUCING MODERN SLAVERY.
The PF regime has turned this Country into a master and slave relationship, this is after they started disrespecting our labour laws. It’s only a slave who can work without pay and cannot query his master. By not paying public workers PF is practicing modern slavery. PF is abusing workers and killing the tenets of good Industrial Relations which Zambia has been known for.
All sane Zambians know that the PF regime brutality has not spared workers in the Country. Do you remember when Kabwe Council workers were battered for asking to be paid? Would you call that as good industrial relations, where you unleash cadres to beat starving workers? This kind of behavior is only found in the Master and Slave relationship where a whip does the talking. In good industrial relations dialog is key to solving and settling all industrial disputes.
The PF regime has managed to get away with such dictatorial tendencies because we are no longer in a closed shop of one Industry one Union. Such nonsense was not tolerated in one industry one union. You cannot beat someone for reminding you that he is hungry because you haven’t paid him. As the list of unpaid employees gets longer, does it mean that you are going to beat up all those employees you are failing to pay?
Government as the largest employer in the Country must lead by good example and not brutality. The example you are setting as Government will harm the economy. You started by increasing salaries for Civil Servants by not more than 5%. In no time, it became fashionable for all employers in the Country to award salary increments of not more than 7%, copying bad manners from you PF. Yet, some employers remit huge profits outside this Country.
Your carelessness will create a situation where the private sector will also stop paying their employees. Once you create this confusion, shamelessly you will accuse HH and the UPND of being behind that and claim, they want workers to rise against a legitimate Government. What a nonsense that will be, but since you are shameless you won’t see how gradually you are creating this situation. UPND will respect workers rights by paying them on time and promote good industrial relations to achieve the required productivity to take our Country forward and achieve the middle income status.
Percy Chanda
UPND – Chairman for Mines and Freedom Fighter