Financial Gazette (Harare)
Shame Makoshori
16 May 2008
Harare — TEXTILE giant, David Whitehead Textiles Limited (DWTL), was last week plunged into chaos after its 1 700 strong workforce went on strike to press for salary increments, The Financial Gazette has heard.
Sources at the firm said the job action came after protracted negotiations between workers and management had reached a deadlock, with management adamant that they would not make any salary adjustments.
"It was a brief job action, lasting three days, but it was very effective," our sources said.
"Management was forced to increase salaries by 100 percent. The industrial action was mostly confined to the plants at Chegutu and Kadoma," the source said.
The Chegutu plant is the largest, employing most workers for the textile giant.
The strike came soon after judicial manager Cecil Madondo resigned from the troubled textile company after sharp differences emerged with government over his proposal to terminate the judicial management and give management control to new investors.
DWTL sources said the strike by workers took place on Monday and was called off on Wednesday after management gave in to workers' demands after it had become evident that output was taking a severe knock at a time when the troubled firm could not afford work stoppages.
The company has been recovering from decades of poor production.
It is one of the many textile companies that were forced to scale down operations at the turn of the century due to the influx of cheap, imported textiles.
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