NISIR WORKERS’ SALARY PROTEST

CHEERFUL and paid employees are fecund employees because they become increasingly motivated and their loyalty is boosted.

Not only do paid employees become more motivated to do a good job, but also tend to be more efficient to develop a sense of belonging to the company or whoever their employer is.

Notwithstanding labour laws of Zambia, if an employer fails to pay wages due, the consequences are many and these include inertia, strike action by the aggrieved workers and civil suits. This of course is counterproductive and for those who may not know it, a late payment in legal terms is also considered the same as no payment.

In some other countries, the employer is obliged to pay an evenhanded interest if a payment due to the employee is made out of time.

This therefore, signifies the importance of paying workers their dues on time, unless of course they have run into bankruptcy and are not in a position to do so. But that is another whole issue altogether.

Equally, non-payment of a salary can lead to smugness, with employees knowing they will not get paid no matter how much they produce.

This can be an encumbrance for employees to perform better, while salary raises based on their performance encourage enhanced productivity. It doesn’t matter what status you fall in, most things spin around money, which is why financial rewards are an operative carrot. Needless to state that money is how people provide for their families and without it, they might have to slash their standard of living, fail to send their children to school and the list is endless.

It is against this background that we think the protest by National Institute for Scientific and Industrial Research (NISIR) employees against nonpayment of salaries for the past three months which has entered day three of their strike action, is a serious development which should be given a compassionate ear.

University of Zambia and Allied Workers Union (UNZAAWU) NISIR branch chairperson Mwape Musonda said the employees gave management a 48 hours ultimatum in which they were expected to be paid the salaries in full for the three months.

In an interview with the Sun, Mr Musonda said it was sad that management had failed to live up to the demand and only gave them threats as response instead of salaries.

“On Monday NISIR had given a 48 hours ultimatum to management to pay them their two months delayed salaries failure to which any action deemed appropriate will be taken.   

“Nothing has been done and so we have entered day three protesting for NISIR the nonpayment of the 3 months salaries July, August and September and we have now enter day three,” he said.  Mr Musonda said they were appealing to management and government to look into the matter because life was becoming very difficult since they had not been paid for the past three months.  

He said as workers they were asking government to bail them out by paying them their salaries so that they could ease the financial stress that they were currently going through. 

No doubt that while many workers claim that job satisfaction and concentration drive their output, salary also plays an idiosyncratic role in how well workers execute their duties.  We think workers at NISIR deserve a heeding ear because one can only picture what they have been going through in the last three months without pay.

We think that since salary usually presages a set wage based on a customary expected duties to be performed, it is only reasonable for NISIR management to do the needful in the interest of its workers.