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WORKERS WANT 8HRS/DAY IF NOT PAID FOR OVERTIME

02/05/2018 00:22:00 BY THEMBINKOSI MAVIMBELA

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PIGG’S PEAK – Employers might soon have two options; have employees work for eight hours or be ready to pay overtime.

The Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) Secretary General Mduduzi Gina, said they wanted the minister of Labour and Social Security to ensure that all workers worked for eight hours a day at most, or be given overtime.

Gina said this when addressing over 10 000 workers at the Killarney Sports Ground during the Workers’ Day celebration yesterday.
“We have engaged government on the issue of people working for more than eight hours without getting overtime and we demand that a gazette rectifying this be issued before the minister leaves office,” Gina said.

He explained that this was an issue which workers fought for over 23 years ago but has not changed. He said some employers especially in the security service sector are known to be perpetrators of this. He called for an immediate end to this and added that the May Day celebration could not be making any meaningful sense if such labour conditions still existed. He labelled this as injustice and hardship as some workers worked for 12 hours a day.

Gina also declared that they would have monthly strikes until government yields to their demands.
He noted that some of the burning issues they wanted addressed were the basic national minimum wage, living wage and labour brokering which he said should come to an end. He blamed the latter for the prevailing poverty in the country as he said labour brokers were pocketing a lot of money which should be going to workers and only giving them what he described as change.

“We have seen that it is possible for this country to have a minimum wage of E3 500 and this is what we are demanding,” Gina said.
He vowed that workers would have monthly protests, one of the biggest being held at the end of August which would go on for not less than five days. He explained that the strike would shut down government operations and would continue to mobilise the organisations’ members so they could be alive to this.