Airzim workers on forced unpaid leave

REINSTATED Air Zimbabwe workers have now been sent on forced unpaid leave and are demanding that the airline, technically insolvent and under administration, immediately withdraws these orders, which they believe are illegal, and reinstates them without loss of salaries and benefits in compliance with the Supreme Court ruling.

The Supreme Court overturned Airzim’s botched mass dismissals using three months’ termination notices and upheld the Labour Court decision ordering reinstatement of the workers or payment of damages in lieu of reinstatement. There was a brief period in 2015 when employers found, via another court ruling, that they had a right to fire a worker on three months notice, but Parliament then intervened to block that route, retrospectively, and restore the position that had been accepted that while an employer could dismiss permanent staff without cause, such as in a redundancy programme, compensation would generally be a great deal more than just three months salary.

But the airline argues that it has no capacity to pay or compensate the more than 300 workers that it reinstated.

Airzim was placed under reconstruction in terms of the State-Indebted Insolvent Companies Act in 2018, for being technically insolvent and is encumbered with a US$341 million debt, 92 percent of which is owed to Zimbabweans and Zimbabwean companies.

The workers had complied with the company directive to report for work and collect their reinstatement letters after the company had written to their lawyer Mr Caleb Mucheche advising his clients that they had been reinstated in compliance with the superior court’s ruling.

However, when they complied with the company directive to collect their reinstatement letters, they were also given letters dated December 12 putting each reinstated worker on unpaid leave with effect from December 7, 2020, until further notice.

In a letter to Air Zimbabwe dated December 30, 2020, Mr Mucheche said the move was in flagrant violation of, and in contempt of the Supreme Court judgment which ordered reinstatement or payment of damages.

“To add insult to injury, our clients have not been paid their back pay arrears salaries and benefits accrued from July 2015 to 7 December 2020, which is one of the main bones of contention and reasons for our clients’ High Court application for your (Airzim administrator Mr Reggie Saruchera) removal as administrator filed on 24 December 2020 under case Number HC 7667/20,” he said.

In their recent application filed at the High Court shortly before being reinstated, the workers claimed that Mr Saruchera was grossly mismanaging the company’s affairs and violating workers’ Constitutional labour rights.

Mr Mucheche said Mr Saruchera’s conduct in sending his clients on forced leave bolstered their grounds for his removal as administrator.