…management won’t budge
WINDHOEK – Striking Mutual & Federal employees will continue to picket outside the company’s head office in Windhoek until they receive a response to a petition they handed over to management yesterday.
“We have to resolve this dispute, but workers will remain outside the company’s offices until we have a response from management,” said General Secretary of the Namibia Financial Institutions Union (Nafinu), Asnath Zamuee, yesterday. According to her negotiations have yielded no progress so far and that the striking employees, who represent about a third of all Mutual & Federal employees, have heard nothing from management’s side. Mutual & Federal is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Old Mutual Group providing short-term insurance services to individuals, commercial and corporate clients in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. Mutual & Federal Namibia currently employs 103 individuals, of which 53 are unionised. At the outset of the strike action, nearly 20 percent of union members decided not to vote on the matter and of the 43 who voted to go on strike, 39 voted in favour of the action. When the strike commenced only 10 of the union members decided not to go along, while only 29 people from various offices countrywide decided to withhold their labour.
Yesterday, Tracy Eagles, the Executive for Marketing, Transformation & Customer Strategy of the Old Mutual Namibia Group, issued a statement to clarify the company’s position. “The union’s unsustainable demands also continue to deliver a deadlock to successful resolution to wage negotiations,” the statement reads. The striking employees originally demanded a minimum 10 percent increase on the total guaranteed package, a housing allowance equal to 20 percent of the total guaranteed package and 100 percent medical aid contribution by the company. In a petition handed over to Mutual & Federal yesterday, the union revised its demands to a salary increase of 9 percent, housing assistance of 20 percent on the total guaranteed package for all non-managerial employees and medical aid contribution by the employer of 50 percent. However, the management of Mutual & Federal says its position on these demands remains unchanged. With regard to the demand for a 10 percent increase Mutual & Federal says in 2013 it incurred two types of salary expenses, namely a normal salary increase of 6.1 percent in April 2013 and a salary adjustment to a number of employees, which came out of a company-initiated remuneration architecture review in August 2013. “The total increase in the total guaranteed package bill as a result of these two increases was overall 12 percent, surpassing the 10 percent increase which the union has demanded. In context, industry increases for 2013 ranged from 7 percent to 8 percent, while Namibian inflation averaged 5.7 percent in 2013,” said Eagles. She added that the current management reviewed the company’s position and offered to increase the April offer of a 6.1 percent salary increment to 7 percent, effective from December 2013.
“The offer is not backdated to April 2013 in order to limit the growth in the wage bill, already maintaining the 12 percent increase, which is in place and to ensure a semblance of sustainability in payroll expenses. This offer was rejected by the union, but remains on the table,” noted Eagles. She maintains that if the union’s demands were granted for 2013, Mutual & Federal’s wage bill, as represented by the total guaranteed package bill, would have gone up by over 36 percent. Commenting on medical aid and housing allowances, Eagles said all employees, management and non-management, are on a total guaranteed package. This, she said, allows all employees to structure their pay packages to accommodate elements such as housing allowance and transport and vehicle allowances. “Total guaranteed package means just that, and it logically follows that the union cannot demand an increase on total guaranteed package and additionally demand medical aid contributions and housing allowances. These elements are already available as part of the total guaranteed package. Increasing total guaranteed package by average 12 percent in 2013 already positively impacted those elements of total guaranteed package that each employee had in place. The union seems not to be clear that the acceptance of the concept of total guaranteed package precludes separate housing and medical aid demands,” said Eagles.
By Edgar Brandt