Workers rejoice as Zimbabwe bans firing on notice
HARARE – The National Assembly of Zimbabwe has amended the Labour Act to protect workers from being fired on three months’ notice without any justification.
This follows a controversial Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that allowed employers to terminate contracts of permanent staff on notice, without offering them any packages.
The ruling, known as the Zuva judgment, sparked a wave of job losses as employers sought to avoid the costs of retrenchment.
The Labour Amendment Bill, which was passed this week, removes the clause that gave employers the power to fire employees by simply giving them three months’ written notice.
The Bill also scraps a provision that allowed for the use of “labour brokerage arrangement”, which was seen as a form of modern slavery. The Bill now awaits transmission to Senate.
In his submission, Harare East legislator Tendai Biti said the import of the Zuva Petroleum judgment was to create an untenable situation on the labour law in the country.
“When that happened, labour law died because what is the point of having a disciplinary hearing when you can simply give three months’ notice? We need to go back to the status quo,” said Biti.
He said that the judgment, which allowed employers to fire workers on notice without any reason, had killed labour law in the country. He argued that workers should only be terminated on fault, except in cases of retrenchment.
He said that the current situation of no-fault termination was unfair and unjust to workers. He appealed to the legislators to remove the clause that gave employers the power to terminate contracts on notice and go back to the old position where workers had protection from arbitrary dismissal.
He added that this would ensure that workers were treated with dignity and respect.
