Zambian workers strike to press new president for change
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LUSAKA — During Michael Sata’s presidential campaign, he promised more money in workers’ pockets. Less than three weeks after taking office, workers are holding him to it with wildcat strikes across the country.
Barely a day passes without reports of work stoppages or sit-ins to press for improved labor conditions, from mines to factories to dock workers, at firms both local and foreign, in cities and towns scattered across the map.
Sata has already ordered the labor ministry to revise the minimum wage, set at $84 (63 euros) a month. He has also ordered foreign companies to abide by labor laws, which workers claim are often circumvented or simply ignored.
Last week in the industrial town of Ndola, 100 workers staged a sit-in at Indian-owned Ashwas Industries, which makes plastic bags and carton boxes, saying they are paid only $50 a month..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20111013com6.html
1 comment
good development. huwag lang abusuhin....
"Zambia’s new labor minister Fackson Shamenda said strikes were spreading because workers had not been free to express themselves under the Movement for Multiparty Democracy, which ran the country for the last two decades.
"“The workers have been suppressed for too long and now they are free to talk,” Shamenda told AFP.
"“Employers should do right and pay the workers accordingly,” he said.
"Some businesses say they are trying to comply with the rules."
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