By MILDRED KATONGO –
THE Government will deploy labour officers to Zambezi Portland Cement as it seeks to halt job cuts at the Ndola-based cement.
Forty-seven workers have been laid off while a further 63 are scheduled for retrenchment.

. Shamenda

Labour and Social Security Minister Fackson Shamenda said the deployment of labour officers was meant to investigate the reasons for retrenching the 47 employees.
Aside from the planned move, Mr Shamenda advised the Mineworkers Union of Zambia (MUZ) to lodge a formal notification with his ministry.
He said in an interview yesterday that MUZ should also engage Zambezi Portland management in talks over the matter before the Government stepped in.
“We have just heard about the laying off of 47 employees at Zambezi Portland. We have not received any formal notification. We are sending our labour officers to visit the company and investigate more,” he said.
Zambezi Portland operations director Danielle Ventriglia confirmed the retrenchment of 47 employees at the weekend and that the affected workers had been paid their benefits amounting to K1.6 million.
Mr Ventriglia said the retrenchment was necessitated by economic reasons and that the company would maintain a lean workforce.
MUZ contested the decision by Zambezi Portland, stating that the right procedure had not been followed.
MUZ general secretary Joseph Chewe said the company did not follow the labour laws which required the company engaging in redundancies to give 60 days as notification to the Labour commissioner as well as notifying the unions as regards the affected employees.
Mr Chewe called on the company management to rescind its decision.
He said MUZ had tried to engage the company’s management to reverse the situation but that they had been adamant.
Mr Chewe appealed to the Government to intervene and help the workers so that they could have their jobs back.