Obligatory bene its will not be affected

MANZINI - Tex Ray Group of Companies has assured its workers that its ongoing exercise of encouraging them to vaccinate would not affect their bonuses and assistance when applying for loans (to external financial institutions).

This is according to a press statement released by Tex Ray Group of Companies Human Resources (HR) Officer Gcina Mamba yesterday.

He said in terms of bonuses, which included annual leave pay, the employees were entitled to and in terms of the law, this was mandatory. In that regard, Mamba said there was no way the company could not pay this.

“Instead, what can be affected is the Christmas or end of year gifts (rice and beans), which we give to the workers as non-obligatory benefits,” he said.

Mamba said the company offered the aforementioned gifts which were not obligatory and there was no binding collective agreement with the workers as this was done in the spirit of goodwill. He also mentioned that in fact, the employer offered these anytime and if he decided otherwise, nobody could challenge that since the action did not prove in any way a legitimate expectation.

Legitimate

“There is no legitimate expectancy to give gifts to employees,” Mamba emphasised.

On the other hand, he said loans from the company were not mandatory since it had no financial schemes, but this was offered with good conscience of the senior management.

Again, he stated that there were loan entitlements to employees, which the company facilitated by endorsing signatures to confirm employment status of the applicant or employee. However, he mentioned that such loans did not come from the company, but wherever the applicant intended to acquire it.

“So there is no way the company, especially the HR department, can refuse employees such,” he added.

Mamba said the loans which were given by the company to its employee were issued in goodwill and free from accruals.

Benefit

He said this non-obligatory benefit was granted when the employee needed money to mitigate financial problems like lack of finances to pay a child’s school fees and in situations of disaster occurrences, like burnt property, either at home or residential places.

On another note, he said as a company, which had about four sub-factories and had employed over 3 300 workers, they would continue to encourage their employees to vaccinate in order to protect themselves, their colleagues, families and communities.

In fact, he said they were happy that recently, they had been recording an increase in the number of workers who registered to vaccinate and they assisted them in the process.

It is worth noting that in terms of the Christmas gifts, in 2016, the company showered its employees with rice worth E260 000 while in 2017, they got rice and maize meal amounting to E270 000. In 2019, they received gifts amounting to E330 000,while last year they got rice and beans worth E390 000.

The company recently sent a memo encouraging its employees to vaccinate if they were to retain the nonobligatory benefits.