Hwange suspends union bosses after strike

By Tichaona Sibanda

The Hwange Colliery Company has suspended three influential members of the workers union for allegedly bringing ‘anarchy’ to the coal mining town. 

Matters came to a head on Monday when police fired teargas and beat women who were demonstrating against the company for failing to pay their husbands. The company has been embroiled in long running wage dispute with its workers after it failed to pay them salaries for the last five months.

According to a highly placed source in Hwange, the company has also been accused of reneging on its promises when it failed to pay them their August and September salaries. The Hwange board had asked the workers to fore-go the salaries they were owed and start on a clean slate at the end of August.

‘The workers desperate for their salaries, somehow grudgingly accepted the management proposal but were disappointed when the same management failed to pay them for the last two months despite the promise,’ the source said.

It is believed that management has in turn targeted three workers representatives who have been pushing the company to honour its pledge. They used the Monday protests as an excuse to suspend them for inciting people to demonstrate against the company.

‘Right now all the workers are afraid to say anything fearing for their jobs. They deliberately targeted the union bosses to instill fear in the workforce,’ our source added.

On Tuesday we reported that police in Hwange who used brutal force to break off a peaceful demonstration by over 100 women in the colliery town on Monday.

The women, mostly wives of workers at the Hwange Colliery Company, wanted to stage a demonstration at the management offices of the company when riot police intercepted them.

Police fired teargas and used batons to disperse the women, who were accompanied by children during the march to the management offices of the colliery company.

Hwange Colliery, which recently appointed Jemester Chininga as acting managing director, has been on the backslide for years, especially under the leadership of Fred Moyo, its former boss.

Moyo left the company in September last year and was replaced by Stanford Ndlovu in an acting capacity. Moyo, who is now the deputy Minister of Mines in the new government, was arrested earlier this year on allegations of defrauding a local gold mining firm of $2.7 million.

With these charges hanging over his head, Robert Mugabe still went ahead and appointed him into government. SW Radio Africa