22 May 2009
Maputo — The international financial crisis has not yet resulted in mass sackings of Mozambican workers, according to the country's largest trade union federation, the OTM.
"The only company which has sacked workers on the pretext of the financial crisis is Mozal (the aluminium smelter on the outskirts of Maputo), which has sacked about 60 workers", OTM spokesperson Francisco Mazoio told AIM on Friday.
The OTM, which represents about 60 per cent of the unionised workers in the country, does not know of any other companies which have made staff redundant because of the financial crisis. However, companies were certainly feeling in other ways the pinch of what has become known in Europe and America as "the credit crunch".
Thus Mozambican tourist operators are lamenting a decline in their income, as citizens of developed countries think twice about taking holidays abroad. And the decline in commodity prices and a slump in demand have hit hard some of Mozambique's main exports - notably the aluminium ingots produced at Mozal, shellfish and cashew nuts.
"We are worried because in other countries where the crisis has had a strong impact, the problem has been reflected in workers' lives, and there have been many redundancies", said Maxoio. "That's why, during the 1st May celebrations we urged that the bill for the international crisis should not be paid by the workers".
He noted that in this year's negotiations over increasing the statutory minimum wage, the employers seized on the financial crisis as an excuse not to raise wages, or to hold them down as far as possible. "That's an impact of the crisis", said Mazoio. "Last year the percentage rises were larger".
There is no longer any uniform minimum wage - instead there are no less then 13 different minimum wages by sectors of work. This year the increases negotiated ranged from just five per cent (for workers of fishing companies on Lake Cahora Bassa) to 42 per cent (for workers in financial services).
Mazoio said the solution to the crisis lay in encouraging the production and consumption of local goods. Mozambican companies, he added, should increase their competitive edge, so as to position themselves in domestic and foreign markets, and avoid the need to lay off large numbers of workers.
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