BURGERSFORT – More than 100 unemployed men who used to work for Glencore Xstrata gathered outside the Department of Labour on Monday demanding their unemployment insurance funds (UIF).
One of them told Steelburger/Lydenburg News that they had received two months UIF before payments had been halted. “The department told us that they could not pay the funds because it was constructive dismissal.
We received all the other necessary funds that go along with termination. This money is our right and we demand it.”
Mr Johannes Mokou, spokesman for the Limpopo Department of Labour said the problem lay with the employer (Glencore Xstrata). “When these men applied for their UIF it was clear that they were fired. Later the system discovered that it was constructive dismissal.
That is when payments were halted,” said Mokou.
Wikipedia explains constructive dismissal as “also called constructive discharge, it occurs when employees resign because their employer’s behaviour has become so intolerable or heinous or made life so difficult that the employee has no choice but to resign. Since the resignation was not truly voluntary, it is in effect a termination”.
Mokou said the matter would have to be cleared with the CCMA. “It must now certify it as dismissal. The department is engaging with the mine to clarify the error. The men were told that the matter would be resolved before April 25.”
These labourers were part of the 1 000 employees sacked by the company last year. About 200 Helena Mine workers were dismissed last May lafter workers at three of Xstrata’s chrome mines in the province embarked on an unprotected (illegal) strike.
This was after three ultimatums had been sent to them of which the first two were to inform labourers that they should return to work, and the third was a notification of their dismissal.
The miners, most of which belong to the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, stopped work in solidarity with an individual who said he was assaulted by a shift supervisor.
The workers were given an opportunity to appeal their termination.
