Lilongwe - President Peter Mutharika’s government is amending the Employment Act to ban state workers from engaging in any sit-in or strike action over low salaries.
This comes after teachers in Malawi began a sit-in protesting government’s failure to pay them their 2016/2017 leave grants, a development the Labour and Manpower Development minister, Henry Mussa said will no longer be tolerated.
Mussa said the amended Employment Act will empower government withholds pay for any worker who engages in any sit-in or strike action.
“There are procedures that make a sit-in or strike legal and not all the strikes or sit-ins we have follow the procedure. So we are saying it’s high time we applied the doctrine of ‘those who do not work should not,” Mussa told Parliamentarians on Tuesday.
“This will mean that you sit-in quite alright but at the end of the month you will not be paid for the days you skipped work – that is the law we are trying to introduce in this chamber.”
A statement issued by Secondary School Teachers Union of Malawi (SESTUM) and signed by its Acting President Pilirani Kapoloma, said teachers in the country are protesting the failure by government to pay them their leave grants.
“Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM) in its circular noted with dismay that up to now as the fiscal year 2016/2017 is coming to an end, all primary teachers and some secondary school teachers have not received their leave grants,” reads the statement.
“TUM wishes to emphasise that government takes full responsibility of the aftermath of this industrial action through its negligence in dealing with this matter with the urgency it deserved.”
