Mediation authority transfers Shoprite case to labour court

The Commission for Mediation and Arbitration (CMA) on Wednesday transferred a case involving workers of the Shoprite-Checkers Ltd and the management to the court of labor after the two parties failed to agree amicably.

Over 100 Shoprite workers at the supermarket’s branches in Kariakoo and Mlimani city areas in Dar es Salaam last week boycotted their work in a move to pressurize the management to pay them their benefits as well as determine their future, whether the new enterprise would absorb them.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Guardian Sunday in Dar es Salaam, the deputy director for the CMA Shanes Nungu said the commission issued a certificate No. 5 as per section 98(2) of the mediation and arbitration Act to allow the two parties to move forward to settle their disputes.

He said this was after the CMA failed to settle the matter which has been handled by them over a month ago without reaching a consensus with workers demanding terminal benefits of more than Sh700 million. 

“Once two parties have failed to agree amicably within 30 days, CMA has the right to transfer the matter to the court of labour for hearing whereby evidence has to be tendered prior for judgment,” he noted.

Elaborating on the certificate No. 5 which the CMA has issued, he said it entails a summary report of the nature of dispute which in the case of Shoprite workers and their management is under ‘termination and operation requirement’.

Workers of the Shoprite-Checkers Ltd had launched a claim to CMA over a month ago accusing their management for failure to settle down their basic payments of arrears upon hearing that the two supermarkets in Dar es Salaam had been sold to a Kenya-based Nakumatt company.

As three days remain before Nakumatt takes over the supermarket, confusion has reigned as hundreds of its employees at Kamata and Mlimani City in Dar es Salaam are kept in the dark about the payment of their terminal benefits.

Efforts by this reporter to reach the General Manager for Shoprite-Checkers Ltd Tanzania Branch Johann Koegelenberg for clarification proved futile. But two weeks ago, he said his company was finalising the process of privatisation with Nakumatt. 

According to workers’ spokesman Bahati Kalolo, they are demanding the benefits which  include a house rent assistance of Sh500,000, transport costs of personal effects to the place of domicile of Sh2 million to each worker.

Others are a golden handshake. equivalent to three months of the basic salary for each year of service since 2001 and a notice of terminating the contract of employment covering two months’ salaries for each employee.

Other miscellaneous payments of arrears include salary increase, payments for treatments, leave allowances which according to them have been accumulated to the tune of over 500 million since 2008.

Investigations by The Guardian on Sunday has it that workers are worried about how it would be with their new contracts once it gets expired from the former employer who does not want to settle down their accumulated payments, and yet Nakumatt Ltd which bought the company’s shares had to start its operations on Tuesday next week. 

Kenya’s largest retail chain Nakumatt has acquired three stores belonging to South Africa’s Shoprite in Tanzania in a multi-billion-shilling deal which has to be completed by end of this month. 

The acquisition gives Nakumatt a bigger presence in Tanzania where it debuted in December 2011 with the 34,000-square feet Nakumatt Moshi outlet.

The deal involves the takeover of three Shoprite outlets  one in Arusha and two in Dar es Salam  and is valued at Sh4 billion.

Shoprite opened its first shop in Tanzania in 2001 and its exit comes a few months after the Tanzanian government warned it against rampant importation of products from South Africa.

SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY