Tongaat Hulett must level playing field:ZSMIWU

Staff writer
The Zimbabwe Sugar Milling Industry Workers Union (ZSMIWU) secretary general, Faster Gono has expressed concern that  sugar processing giant ,Tongaat Hulett has decided to embark on a retrenchment exercise which is ‘targeting’low level personnel while at the same time the company is still employing senior management employees.
“Its so much surprising to hear that the company wants to retrench low-level personnel whilst employing senior level employees.

If the company is not performing very well, it means management is failing to produce, hence, focus should be on rehiring management teams and laying of the inept ones,”said Gono.

“Before, the company was performing and producing with six executive members, and now they have gone digitalization.
Instead of reducing the executive teams, we have witnessed that the number of executive management teams has escalated swiftly, especially in the finance, mill departments
and they go with huge lucrucative perks and allowances.
“When the company digitalized, most management jobs were streamlined with computer programming whilst manual work will be done by lower band employees.
So if the company wants to retrench, focus should be on those executive members whose jobs are, duplication and merging some departments reducing management team.
“These are the groups of people who make bigger portions of the cake,”added Gono.
Gono called to Tongaat Hulett to ensure that there is a same level playing field and desist from favour a certain grade of workers.

“This is the problem at Tongaat Hulett…It remains just normal as always known that the rot of the fish starts with the head.The playing field is not even as l can continue to scrutinize and say more and more. I repeat, the field is not even as the large expenses are on perks. The poor workers without anywhere to start are being shipped into poverty. That is inhumane and very unfair, especially when there is no financial disclosure and transparency.

“If one is to imagine that in the fields department, the company has a general manager, agriculture technical manager, area manager, overseas, block supervisor, and fertilizer supervisor.
It is duplication that is also affecting all stakeholders and the price of sugar,” said Gono.
No immediate response could be obtained from the company.
Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe plans to lay off 1,000 employees by August this year, a company official said, as it seeks to cut costs and survive the country’s currency turmoil and inflationary pressures.