BY JAMES MUTASA

A Designated Agent with the National Employment Council for the Brickmaking and Clay Products Manufacturing Industry, Boniface Madziwabende recently ordered that Chang Nan Building Materials Private Limited pay US$8870-00 to its 36 employees as their outstanding leave days within 30 days of receiving the arbitral award.

The 36 employees had told Madziwabende that they were employed on various dates of employment by Chang Nan Building Materials (Pvt) Ltd and had accrued leave days for the year 2025. Despite repeated demands and advice from G Dzitiro Attorneys, respondent’s legal representatives, the employer refused to pay the 36 employees their accrued entitlements.

The disgruntled employees highlighted to Madziwabende that they are engaged by Respondent on contracts without limit of time. Adding that each one of them is owed one-month salary for leave days of which Respondent argued that leave pay was already included in salaries.

“There was no evidence before the Tribunal demonstrating that Respondent had paid the Claimants their leave days in question. The evidence furnished by the claimants did not clearly provide evidence as to the grades of the claimants as well as date of commencement of work as well as to how many leave days were owed to each individual,” reads part of Madziwabende’s award.

“The claimants state that the Respondent argued that their leave days were paid in the basic salary, but the Respondent did not furnish the claimants with their contracts of employment as giving them payslips which clearly shows that they were paid,” Madziwabende added.

“In analysing the documents furnished to this tribunal I noticed that two employees Soul K and Wydon Honde should not be part of these proceedings since they had the same issues before the NEC hence cannot bring two cases of the same before the NEC”.

According to the arbitral award, Chang Nan Building Materials (Pvt) Ltd failed to file a response and failed to attend the arbitration proceedings. The tribunal went further and wrote a letter asking the Respondent their heads of arguments but nothing was furnished to the tribunal. The Tribunal therefore proceeded in the Respondents absence after satisfying itself that the Respondent had been properly notified of the proceedings.