eBusiness Weekly
Andile Tshuma
Bulawayo. — Panic has gripped workers at Edgars Stores Limited over plans to lay off about 90 employees in Bulawayo as part of a restructuring exercise, but company officials say there is “a misunderstanding” around the issue.
Management at the big clothing retailer could not come out clear on the matter. A senior company executive, Ms Linda Masterson, confirmed restructuring but said the issue has been misunderstood by employees.
“All I can say is that we are doing some reshuffling at our factory, which may result in some people losing jobs, but I cannot say anything beyond that. I’m not in a position to give further details at the moment but we do have a reshuffling exercise,” she said.
Responding to e-mail questions sent to her later, Masterson said she was unable to discuss staff matters with the media.
“We are not able to discuss staff matters with the press. Matters of the nature you enquire after, if they happened, would only be discussed with our staff through the proper channels,” she added.
However, our Bulawayo Bureau was shown some scanned documents from the company management advising staff that 90 people must go on voluntary retirement before June 11, or else face forced retirement.
Reads part of the documents: “The business continues to face a difficult operating environment. In the circumstances, it is imperative for strong measures to be taken to ensure that the business does not fold. Consequently, staff are invited to apply for voluntary retrenchment”.
According to documents seen by our reporter conditions of the planned retrenchment include half a month’s back pay for every year served, a long service award where its due in 2018, staff account write-offs for purchases until May 31, 2018 and assistance in loan repayments.
The threat of job cuts comes barely a week after the company had signalled positive prospects with plans to resume exports.
Disgruntled workers who spoke on condition of anonymity expressed their shock over the employer’s decision, which they said was unilateral and feared for their welfare.
“We had just been hearing it in the corridors that we were being watched and that some of us were going to go home. We were only addressed last week but still the criteria of who is going to be retrenched or fired is still unclear. It is worrying,” said one of the general workers. A female staffer who also requested anonymity hoped her job was safe as she had school going children to take care of.
“My husband is unemployed and I am the only breadwinner in the family. We have three children at school and I cannot afford to lose this job. I hope the company will be sensitive enough to consider the plight of us workers before turning us away. We have nowhere else to go because the economy is bad,” said the worker.
A workers’ committee representative, who preferred anonymity alleged the workers council had been threatened by management if they took the matter to the media.
“We fear for our jobs. They told us that they were called by journalists about this matter. They said anyone who comments in the media will be the first on the firing line. It becomes difficult to represent the workers as we are now easy targets,” said the representative.
