ONCE the country's celebrated retail sector excellence brand, OK Zimbabwe's employment standards seem to be slowly backsliding leaving the retailer in a cat-and-mouse relationship with its employees.
This was revealed in a letter written by the Commercial Workers Union of Zimbabwe (CWUZ) and addressed to the company's Human Resources Director.
In the letter seen by NewZimbabwe.com, CWUZ Secretary General Cuthbert Chikwekwete accused the retailer of overseeing a series of worker abuses such as forcing the employees to use part of their salaries in purchasing groceries strictly at OK Zimbabwe.
"Your employees have advised that part of their salaries are deposited into the OK Shop Easy card disguised as a "cushion allowance" on their payslips. The act by the employers is unfair, unlawful, archaic, disrespectful and a travesty of justice as it denies total control and independence over one's salary.
"This is so because the part salary deposited into the "Shop Easy Card" only purchases goods in OK Zimbabwe shops thereby completely denying employees to spend their salaries as they so wish," the workers said.
The workers' group alleged the top retailers have since developed the habit of not issuing pay slips both physically or on emails and promptly reminded the group to respect the fact that issuance of payslips is a non-negotiable right which enables the employees to verify the correctness of their earning and deductions from there.
The union also alleged that OK Zimbabwe Limited applied for an exemption to the NEC Exemption Committee to be exempted from complying with wages CBA for the period 1/3/24 to 31/7/24.
While the application was successful at the expiry of the period, OK Zimbabwe ought to have reverted to complying with the same CBA commencing 1 August 2024 to 31 October 2024 which was not the case herein.
"The employer must as a matter of principle and law comply with the referred CBA and pay all arrears for August to October 2024 being the effective period of the wages CBA in question," added Chikwekwete.
