Employers will no longer be able to terminate contracts of their permanent staff on three months notice after the National Assembly removed a clause in the Labour Act that conferred them powers to fire employees by simply giving them three months’ written notice.
The Supreme Court made a judgment commonly known as the
Zuva judgment in 2015 which opened floodgates of termination of employment as
employers tried to avoid going through the financial burden that goes with
retrenchment, what had been assumed to be the only way of getting rid of staff
who had not committed disciplinary offences.
The Supreme Court ruled that companies could lawfully
terminate staff contracts at any time without offering them packages, provided
they are given at least three months’ notice after Zuva Petroleum was allowed
to fire its two managers on notice.
There were some modifications later but not the whole
process of termination of employment on notice is being dropped.
During debate on the Labour Amendment Bill this week,
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi acceded to
issues raised by legislators that Clause 8 which sought to amend Section 12 of
the Labour Act be amended by removing the requirement of notice.
Minister Ziyambi proposed amendments to remove the word
“notice” wherever it appeared in that Clause.
He however rejected proposed amendments from opposition CCC
legislators for paternity leave and acceded to have a Clause allowing for the
use of “labour brokerage arrangement” removed after legislators argued that it
amounted to “modern day slavery”.
It was felt that “labour brokerage arrangement” worked on
the basis that a middle-man will employ his own employees and then sub-employ
those people to a third party like company or bank, as in the case with
cleaning services where they are not directly employed by the company they are
offering service.
The Labour Amendment Bill sailed through in the National
Assembly and now awaits transmission to Senate.
Other Bills that sailed through National Assembly late on
Thursday include the Electricity Amendment Bill and Children’s Amendment Bill.
The Electricity Amendment Bill seek to further deter those
people that vandalise electricity infrastructure by imposing mandatory
deterrent sentences while the Children’s Amendment Bill seeks to align the
Children’s Act to the Constitution and international conventions.
The Bill essentially aims to strengthen the country’s child
protection framework, in particular to afford all children needful protection
and assistance to enable them to fully assume their responsibilities in the
community.
Meanwhile, debate on the Electoral Amendment Bill continued
on Thursday evening in the National Assembly with legislators agreeing that
there was duplication of duties between the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and
the Registrar General on voter registration and issue of documents.
It was felt that there was need for the RG’s office to do
voter registration given that it was the one seized with issuing national
identity documents.
However, changes could not be made immediately since that
would require an amendment to the Constitution.
“Even the delimitation process, we do not need a hangover
for the commission to be involved in delimitation; they have fights with
everyone else and that is carried over to an election. The way it was, we had a
Delimitation Commission which was divorced from the electoral body and that
makes the situation even tidier. I submit that we do not need this for now and
I am moving that we remove it and keep it in our minds for when we have the
next Session of Parliament,” said Minister Ziyambi. Herald
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