11 Feb 2016

Pula Steel employees who had gone on strike have resumed their duties. The workers put down their tools on Tuesday morning citing issues of non-payment of overtime and delay in payment of January salaries.

In an interview, Pula Steel’s director of corporate services Mr Brian Mosenene confirmed that the employees had gone back to work after downing  tools on Tuesday morning.
He explained that the workers went on strike due to delay on payment of  their January salaries and overtime arrears from as far back as October 2015.

He blamed the situation on one of the local commercial banks the company is doing business with stating that the bank had delayed the transaction to credit the employees accounts.

He noted that they visited the bank on Tuesday morning to rectify the problem . He said it was unfortunate that the situation ended up with a strike though they had been keeping constant communication with the workers informing them about the challenges the organisation faced that caused late payments.

A representative of the organisation’s workers committee, Mr Omphile Maitio confirmed in an interview that workers had resumed their duties after receiving their payments on Tuesday night.
He explained that 70 workers had put their tools down on Tuesday morning at the steel manufacturing facility.

He explained that they decided to stop working due to the fact that they had been holding a series of meetings with the company management to resolve the issue of late payment of salaries and non-payment of overtime arrears but to no avail.
He noted that as the workers committee they presented their case to the Selebi Phikwe deputy district commissioners office who also referred them to labour office.

He said after presenting their case, the labour office and his committee met with Pula Steel management and came to an understanding on the issue. He said Pula Steel management indicated that employees would be paid their January salaries including overtime arrears from October to December by Tuesday midnight. He added that the organisation’s management requested that the January and February overtime be paid by end of February.

In the meantime, the CEO of Pula Steel, Mr Ranvir Kumar Verma explained that the strike impacted on their production as they were operating with skeletal staff. He said the payment issue had been resolved and everything was back to normal. Ends