Chingola in lousy Labour Day celebrations

Dr Katema

Sata's Labour Day verbatim speech read more 

CHINGOLA was today marred by lousy Labour Day celebrations as only handful employees from the civil service and parastals attended.
More employees who were making up the numbers seemed to have been coming from the major contractors such as Mechanized Mining Solution (MMS), Moolmans, U&M and other companies but all these companies had their contracts terminated by Konkola Copper Mines (KCM).
Zambia Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) Chingola branch Chairperson Aaron Mutondo could not hide his feelings and openly said the termination of the contracts for major contractors had left many people jobless in the district rendering the Labour Day event irrelevant   to them.
Mr Mutondo said Chingola was the most hit district by the job losses the country was experience.
He said it was saddening that labour laws were being flouted with impunity.
And Community Development, Mother and Child Health Minister Joseph Katema said his Government was determined to create jobs for youths through the Youths Empowerment Fund.
Dr Katema said in an effort to create more jobs Government was willing to work with liked minded private sectors in accelerating job creation.
The Minister called on the employers to provide better conditions of service in order to motivate employees.
ZCTU representative Evans Chungu said workers rights are actually human rights hence the need for policy makers to ensure workers were given attention.
Mr Chungu said workers are a backbone in implementation of Government policies.
The eloquent unionist castigated politicians that term unionists as mouth piece for the opposition political parties.
“You can’t separate politics from unionism, in as much as you can’t separate policies from politics or rather separate politics from the media. So we are not being used we speak for our members,” he said.
He warned Government that it risked being ousted out of power like MMD if workers conditions were not given attention.
Mr Chungu also appealed to his members to be productive and be punctual for work.
He said lost time at work could not be recovered and proper time usage was what was differentiating the rich from the poor.