17 July 2009
Maputo — Workers at the sugar company Acucaraeira de Mocambique (AM) at Mafambisse, in the central Mozambican province of Sofala, have called on the government to throw the main shareholder, the South African company Tongaat Hulett, out of the company, reports the Beira daily paper "Diario de Mocambique".
At a meeting on Wednesday with Provincial Governor Alberto Vaquina the workers said that the AM management violates their rights, and claimed that this does not happen in other sugar companies.
They claimed that the company used to provide tractors that would carry the coffin, whenever a member of a worker's family died. But the management has replaced this support with a grant of 500 meticais (about 19 US dollars), which the workers say is not sufficient to purchase transport for a coffin.
Among other complaints, they said that plantation workers are obliged to work from 05.00 to 18.00, without the right to any meals (a 13 hour shift without any breaks would be a serious violation of Mozambican labour legislation).
"We don't know what will become of us next year, because the company management is cutting all the workers' rights", said the secretary of the AM trade union committee, Mario Domingos.
He alleged that the management was also dumping fermented waste liquid in the plantation drainage channel, which flowed into and polluted the Pungue river.
A Mafambisse regulo (traditional chief) complained that the current management had broken with the tradition of holding traditional ceremonies at the start of the sugar milling campaign. "These foreigners come here to sabotage our country, because they don't respect our traditions", he said.
"We don't know what kind of shareholder this Tongaat Hulett is", said Domingos. "So we ask the government to find other partners, otherwise our company will collapse".
Tongaat Hulett is the company that dominates the South African sugar industry. It owns 75 per cent of the shares in AM, and 49 per cent of a second Mozambican sugar company, at Xinavane in Maputo province. AM produced 45,000 tonnes of sugar in 2008, and Tongaat Hulett plans to double this to 90,000 tonnes by 2010.
Vaquina said he had noted the workers' concerns, and their complaints would be investigated in order to find a solution. He was sure that the AM managing director, Paul de Villiers who attended the meeting, and had earlier told him that relations with the workers were good, would take into consideration all the problems they had raised.
He insisted that the contracts the company has signed with its workers must be respected, and urged the company to reinstate the traditional ceremonies. "You don't lose anything by respecting our traditions", Vaquina said.
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