Zimasco works on payment of retrenchees
FERROCHROME producer, Zimasco, is working on modalities to ensure that the workers who lost their jobs during a recent purge receive their packages.
The depressed ferrochrome market prompted the organisation to adopt a lean management initiative, which involved a review of work cycles across the board, an exercise which saw a total of 328 employees being retrenched.
Zimasco chief operations officer, Mr Namatai Mapfumo, said the development also involved re-engineering of processes to align with global trends and technologies.
“The old Zimasco furnaces, which were running marginally had to be mothballed in the last quarter of 2023 in view of further weakening of the ferrochrome market and increases in the cost of production,” he said.
“These old furnaces require upgrading before they can be run profitably in the current market environment. In view of all of the above, the company conducted a labour restructuring exercise to align the labour with the current operations.
“A total of 328 employees across the Zimasco group were identified to be excess to requirements and as such were retrenched or had their fixed term contracts terminated.”
Mr Mapfumo said some employees will, however, be re-engaged in other projects, adding 60 of the retrenched employees have been absorbed at the new furnaces, and an additional thirty 30 are expected to be engaged to bring the total number absorbed to 90.
He said the company was also working on the payment of the retrenched workers.
“In terms of the Labour Act, parties must engage at Works Council level to discuss and agree on the package to be paid to the retrenched employees in terms of compensation for loss of employment,” said Mr Mapfumo.
“The retrenchment affected employees in different groups and different NECs, thereby, necessitating different engagements with the different groups and NECs.
“To date, the engagement processes are at different levels of progress with some having been concluded and signed off while others are still in progress.”
Mr Mapfumo said payment of packages will only be done once the packages have been approved by the Retrenchment Board.
Zimasco has also launched a small-scale alluvial processing initiative in the North and Middle Dyke, which will create in excess of one thousand new jobs.
The initiative has already started operating and to date about 200 people are now gainfully employed processing alluvial to produce chromite concentrates as more and more teams are being engaged to ramp up production.
“At various points in the recent past, Zimasco has implemented measures to avoid retrenchment, which included short time working. However, given the market forecasts for 2024 relative to the cost of production it became apparent that the company would not be in a position to refurbish/upgrade the mothballed capacity and be able to run in 2024 and a labour restructuring exercise became unavoidable,” said Mr Mapfumo.-chronicle
