The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has ordered the payment of salary arrears to 168 former security officers accumulated over two years, bringing an end to a 15-year-old labor dispute.
The back pay piled up between February 2009 and September 2011, with the legal battle over the definition of “everyone” in an agreement between the Fed and its employees and whether that included unclassified contract workers and security officers.
The Supreme Court ruling followed an appeal by the Reserve Bank against a Labor Court ruling setting aside an arbitration award in favor of security officers that upheld their claim for payment of arrears of salaries and benefits.
The focus of the dispute was whether the salaries and benefits stipulated in the labor council agreement concluded in September 2010 include 168 former security officers.
In their appeal, the security officers said that the court of first instance erred when it concluded that the word “everyone” as stated in the minutes and the agreement’s decision did not include them.
They felt that the word “everyone” should include them. A list of 1,079 employees, including security officers, was presented to the court.
The officers said it would be absurd to exclude security officers from salary negotiations for the sole reason that they work on fixed-term contracts. The agreement gave “all” employees across the board a $500 salary increase.
But RBZ said the security officers’ employment contracts specifically stipulated that the contracts were fixed-term for three months and that the salary they would be paid was stipulated in the contracts, as a standard salary of US$250.
The Bank argued that the agreement could not cover security officers on the basis that they had no progression system and had contracts containing specific provisions for their conditions of service, so the works council’s decision did not change the provisions of their contracts and did not refer to security officers who were fixed-term employees appointed for a fixed period. And project specific.
The Fed insisted that the Labor Court had correctly interpreted the agreement and the minutes that preceded it to reach the conclusion that “all” employees meant all non-managerial permanent employees of the bank but excluding contract employees.
After hearing arguments from counsel for both parties, Justice Antonia Guvava, sitting with Justice Tendai Uchenna and Justice Hlekani Mwira, granted the appeal by the security officers, finding that the definition of employees as set out in the Labor Code was comprehensive and recognized the existence of differences in the types of employment relationships that It is formed with different terms and conditions.
It ruled that the works council agreement consisted of two parts: the first granted a US$500 increase across the board, including salary arrears from 1 March to 31 December 2009, and this could not be said to include a rating system as it was awarded across the world. blackboard.
The grading system was only introduced from January 2010, and stipulates a stipend of US$500 for the lowest paid worker.
It was clear from the papers before the judges that the content of the security officers’ claim was the basic salary of 500 US dollars, which was given to all employees in all fields.
“The works council agreement, relating to employee classification and other benefits, cannot be applied to the appellants (security guards),” Judge Guvava said.
“In my view, what applied to the appellants was the decision to award a $500 salary to all employees regardless of whether they were permanent or contract workers and whether they were classified or unclassified.”
To this end, the judge said that the Labor Court correctly found that the word “all” in the works council agreement and its minutes was in relation to all employees of the Central Bank, but then fell into error when it failed to appreciate that the reference to the word “all” employees in the works council agreement The employment includes security officers as they were duly employed by the bank at the time the agreement was entered into and dissolved.
“In these circumstances, the appeal should succeed. In relation to costs, there is no reason why costs should not follow reason,” said the judge who allowed the appeal with costs.
“The parties must agree to determine the amount of back wages for each appellant within 30 days of this order. If the parties fail to agree on the amount, either party may approach the Labor Court to determine the amount.
In 2017, the Supreme Court referred the dispute to the Labor Court to consider whether the salaries and benefits stipulated in the September 2010 agreement included 168 former security officers.
Under this ruling, if the agreement applies to 168 officers, the matter should move to determining the salary and benefits payable to each guard under the agreement.
The calculation will be from March 1, 2009 to the expiration date of their contracts.
The security officers, all former police officers, worked for the Central Bank on fixed-term contracts, renewable every three days Months.
Their contracts ranged from 2007 to 2008 until January and April 2011, when they expired over time.
The contracts were not renewed because the project they were employed on finally ended in 2011. Herald
