REINSTATE DISMISSED EBC CLERKS - TUCOSWA

MANZINI – The Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) has criticised the EBC for dismissing elections registration clerks who participated in political demonstrations.

The congress wants the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) to reinstate all the 11 emaSwati, who were dismissed for purportedly being partisans of political activities. Through its Secretary General (SG), Mduduzi Gina, the workers’ federation released a press statement yesterday and highlighted that they had been following with disappointment reports of dismissal of workers by government from the EBC employment. The federation said these dismissals were unfair in all aspects.

Process

It added that no legal process was followed, thus it should be condemned. On the same note, it said the country was signatory to various international conventions that protects workers from being discriminated against on the basis of political affiliation. It said these international instruments were domesticated into the country’s laws, specifically through the Employment Act, No 5, 1980. “Section 29 of the Act provides as follows: ‘No employer shall, in any contract of employment between himself and an employee discriminate against any person or between employees on grounds of race, colour, religion, marital status, sex, national origin, tribal or clan extraction, political affiliation or social status.’,” the federation said. It added that yesterday, they woke up to news that the number of those who had been dismissed had increased from eight to 11 workers within a period of less than a month.

Exempted

It said according to its analysis, government was acting as if it was exempted from the application of the provisions of the Employment Act. The federation also highlighted that Section 5 of the Employment Act provided that the Act bound government, save for some exclusions that did not apply to workers employed by the EBC. “We expect workers employed by the EBC to be treated in the same way that employees in the public and semi-public sectors are treated. They should enjoy the protection against being discriminated against in any of the listed grounds of discrimination, as guaranteed by the employment laws of the land and the Constitution,” the federation said in the statement. On top of that, it said Section 32 of the Constitution guaranteed the right of protection of workers against victimisation and unfair dismissal or treatment.

Alleged

It said the dismissal of all the 11 clerks was purely based on alleged arbitrariness, founded on perceived political affiliation. “Their dismissal was instant and the workers were not given an opportunity to be heard. “We believe that this is a gross violation of the workers’ rights,” reads part of the statement. After that, the federation called upon the government, specifically the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, to refrain from this gross violation with impunity of the worker rights and their freedoms. It further said this kind of ‘unfair labour practice’ was adding to the endless list of workers’ rights violations that they had witnessed in the last two years. It also called upon government to reinstate all these workers to their previous work and positions, with all the benefits they would have enjoyed, had they not been dismissed. It added that the workers, on their part, were free to approach the federation or any of its affiliates for assistance in enforcing and protecting their rights. Moreover, the federation said employment discrimination of any kind by any employer, including the government, directly challenged its (federation) core functions, responsibilities and mandate.

Urgency

Therefore, the federation said it would, as a matter of urgency, kindle its worker defence mechanisms to stop this alleged conduct before it wipes the entire public sector workers and even gets to be copied by private sector employers. It said it would, in a separate cover cause for the convening of a meeting with the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, formally register its discontentment in the way government had handled this matter. Nonetheless, it said by copy of this statement, its allies in the region, continent and the globe at large, were invited to intervene in their spaces and platforms to call upon government to stop this worker rights violation.

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