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Tanzania: BP, Workers in Standoff Over Sackings Plan
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The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
12 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Tom Mosoba And Mwanamkasi Jumbe
A dispute has broken out at the British Petroleum (BP) Tanzania Limited over a planned retrenchment exercise that workers have dismissed as illegal.
While the BP management has given workers until today (Monday) to sign forms binding them to the retrenchment plan, a union has asked the employees to disregard the directive.
The Citizen yesterday established that the standoff may lead to a fully blown out industrial tussle if no solution is forthcoming in the course of the week.
Workers have threatened to resort to industrial action to shelve the planned downsizing and paralyse operations of the company that has recently returned to profit making after years of huge losses.
At the centre of the controversy is a collective bargaining agreement that the top management is accused of seating on.
"The management has not signed the agreed collective bargaining agreement or released the new company structure to enable employees make informed choices," said Mr Mathews Giraita, who is the branch chairman the Tanzania Union of Industrial and Commercial Organisations (Tuico).
Mr Giraita said the BP's managing director Mr Abel Chanje has declined to reveal the new company structure or release the agreed collective bargaining agreement as required by law.
Workers accuse the management of resorting to arm-twisting tactics and threatening workers to sign an expression of interest forms. They are also accusing him of seeking to circumvent the labour laws in the process.
"Asking staff members to take part in a process that could lead to their retrenchment without knowing the retrenchment package is tantamount to asking staff to apply for jobs without a job description," Mr Giraita noted in a communication to the MD.
Other workers who talked to The Citizen at the weekend said a collective bargaining agreement endorsed by TUICO and other senior management had been withheld by Mr Chanje who had reportedly declined to involve the board in approving it as needed.
Yesterday, efforts to get comments from the MD were futile as he declined to say anything, instead referring all queries to the company's spokesperson Mr Felix Kibodya. Mr Kibodya who confirmed the company was planning some retrenchment however said he would only answer written queries submitted to his office.
Calls to the board chairman Mr Salvatory Ntomola could not go through as sources said he was away in Canada on safari.
The Citizen however established that the board last week held an extraordinary meeting that was expected to deliberate on the retrenchment and the growing unease among employees.
The employees have since two weeks ago been taken over in house training and counseling to prepare them for the retrenchment. BP has currently 180 workers countrywide, most of them based in Dar es Salaam. The downsizing if executed, would be the third over the last six years, when staffing at the company has fallen from 400.
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The company last year posted a profit of Sh12.5 billion and projections from within the firm say this year the profit will be in the range of Sh2 billion. It is because of this trend that workers feel the management should treat them fairly in any streamlining efforts.
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