Namibia: Hartlief Employees Strike

By Ester Mbathera

EMPLOYEES of Hartlief Continental Meat Products in Windhoek, embarked on a strike today.

Namibia Food and Allied Workers Union (Nafau) secretary general Jacob Penda confirmed that employees opted to strike after reaching a deadlock in negotiations around working conditions and wages.

Penda says this includes differences in benefits, such as housing and pension.

"The company is not willing to meet the workers half way. Some employees have a housing allowance of N$1 750 and others of N$500. As per the law, the workers are doing the same work, they should have the same benefits and the same salary, including pension."

Penda says the company has pension disparities around contributions of 11% for some employees, and 8% for others.

"These are some of the inequalities in the employment conditions that workers want to be addressed.

"Salary increments - that is an issue we can come down reasonably but some conditions are a no go area."

Ohlthaver & List group spokesperson Roux-Ché Locke says the company is offering a 3% salary increase, and the weekly N$50 incentive is to be changed to a N$200 monthly added basic.

The union and employees are however demanding N$750 across the board, which is an average increase of 13%.

"Our position is to firmly remain on the 3% and the N$200 incentive to shift to basic. While we anticipate the strike will have an impact on the business over the next few days, operations will continue as normal. We are however positive that a peaceful strike will prevail," Locke says.

This article originally appeared on Namibian

Photo: Namibian