Alfred Wasike
9 May 2008
Kampala — THE Government should set a minimum wage so that employees are not at the mercy of employers, according to the opposition UPC party.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the party's vice-president, Livingstone Okello Okello, said the absence of a minimum living wage had encouraged private sector employers to subject their workers to slave-like conditions.
"Private sector workers are subjected to miserably low wages since there is no minimum wage set by law, they suffer dangerous working conditions, starvation at work and confinement even during lunch breaks."
Benson Ogwang and Patrick Aroma read the statement to journalists at Uganda House in Kampala during their weekly press briefing.
UPC said workers in the private sector suffer because employers withhold their pay without clear reasons, fail to remit NSSF contributions and summarily dismiss them.
Other 'evils of private employers', Okello Okello added, were discouraging staff from joining or forming trade unions, not paying their terminal payments and discrimination in training and promotion.
"Because of the poor pay in both the public and private sector, employees are not motivated to produce to the best of their ability.
"In many instances, even when they are not on open strike, these workers quietly sabotage their employers," Okello Okello observed.
Privatisation, he added had led to the retrenchment of workers, most of whom were paid "miserable" terminal benefits.
The party claimed that the workers who refuse to work with their bosses on corrupt deals were demonised or dismissed.
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