Union official attacks Constitutional Council ruling, says foreigners may now “abuse Mozambican workers in the knowledge that nothing will happen to them”

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Union official attacks Constitutional Council ruling, says foreigners may now “abuse Mozambican workers in the knowledge that nothing will happen to them”

9:11 CAT | 29 May 2017

O País (File photo) / Jeremias Timana

A senior Mozambican trade unionist on Monday openly supported the power, now ruled as unconstitutional, of the Labour Minister to sack any foreign worker without the right of appeal or defence.

Until this month Labour regulations gave the Minister the absolute power to terminate any foreigner’s contract and have him or her thrown out of the country. But the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest body in matters of constitutional law, in a unanimous decision on 9 May, has now ruled that this norm in the labour regulations violated the Constitution.

The norm was unconstitutional because it denies the foreign worker affected the right “to defend himself in a due legal procedure”, the Council declared. A dispatch from the Minister revoking a private contract “without offering, in good time, the opportunity for defence against the content of the accusations, whatever their nature, is an unequivocal and flagrant violation of the principle of contradiction which is essential under the rule of law”.

One might have expected trade unionists to have welcomed this vigorous opposition to the ability of a Minister to terminate work contracts unilaterally. But instead, Jeremias Timana, the general secretary of the National Confederation of Free and Independent Unions of Mozambique (CONSILMO), the smaller of the country’s two trade union federations, claimed the Council ruling was “a setback” in the struggle for workers’ rights.

Timana was speaking to reporters at the end of a meeting in Maputo of the Labour Consultative Council (CCT), the tripartite negotiating forum between the government, the unions and the employers. He claimed that the Council ruling took the unions by surprise, and alleged that the measure means that foreigners could now “abuse Mozambican workers in the knowledge that nothing will happen to them”.

The Council ruling, of course, says nothing of the sort. Any foreigner who assaults or insults a Mozambican worker will still be subject to disciplinary and even criminal proceedings. But he will be given an opportunity to defend himself.

Timana claimed that in the past, if a foreigner abused Mozambican workers, the unions could turn to the Labour Ministry for support. He feared that if the Ministry were no longer able to intervene, the abused workers might take matters into their own hands. Removing this norm from the labour regulations might lead to acts of xenophobia, he alleged.

But the Council never suggested that the Ministry could not act in cases where foreigners abuse Mozambicans – merely that it cannot unilaterally terminate their contracts. The legal remedies still exist, and abusers can still be hauled before the courts.

Timana claimed that, after the Council ruling, workers who believe their rights have been abused will have to go to the police, the public prosecutor’s office and the courts, a process he regarded as very long winded.

But the General Secretary of the CCT, Joao Loforte, said the government has no alternative but to accept the ruling decreed by the Constitutional Council.

The Monday CCT session mainly discussed the establishment of labour tribunals, a longstanding demand of the unions (and these courts, when established, might be able to deal with the abuses that concerned Timana).

“The government is revising the law to grant importance to Labour Tribunals and allow their rapid implantation”, said Loforte. “The matter goes to the Council of Ministers later this month”.