WALVIS BAY – Elgin Brown and Hamer Namibia (EBH) will pay out N$873 284 referred to as scrap money to about 350 employees apart from those in management positions.
Scrap money is generated from salvaged material and unwanted material that are cut or removed from shipping vessels at the owners’ request while the vessels are being repaired by EBH.
The scrap material is then sold and the proceeds paid into an account and paid to employees at the end of every year.
However, employees did not receive such money for 2017 and 2018, resulting in them demanding for it last week through a petition they handed over through Mining, Metal, Maritime and Construction Union (MMMC), to the acting CEO of EBH Heritha Muyoba.
Employees also accused EBH for unreasonably pushing for retrenchment negotiations while the process was still being discussed.
According to MMMC, EBH allegedly changed the agreed notice period of some employees by extending it.
“Hence we want EBH to recall all employees that was issued with notice to come back and the retrenchment notices be reissued to all facing retrenchment and such notices to run concurrently,” stated the petition handed over last week. Muyoba on Thursday said EBH complied with all the provisions of the Labour Act, in terms retrenchment of 50 employees in an ongoing exercise.
The company further adhered to the merits of the retrenchment agreement in implementing the retrenchment negotiations.
In a statement released earlier last month, the company said a significant decline in docking activity from the ship repair sector over the past years had prompted the retrenchments.
She added they remain committed in complying with all legislative requirements, and to ensure that this process is conducted with the requisite levels of professionalism, sensitivity and fairness.
“The period for the notice is prerogative of the company and such has been exercised. It is not a negotiable matter therefore the notices will not be recalled and the retrenchment implementation will proceed as scheduled,” Muyoba said in a statement on Thursday.