Sucre Ethique - Mozambique : Maragra Sugar Workers on Strike

jeudi 8 juillet 2010

Maputo — More than 600 seasonal cane cutters, working for the Maragra sugar company, in Manhica district, about 80 kilometres north of Maputo, have been on strike since Monday, to protest against social security deductions from their wages, reports Wednesday’s issue of the daily paper "’Noticias".

A team of officials from the Maputo Provincial Labour Directorate, the Labor Inspectorate, and members of the Manhica district government visited Maragra on Tuesday to assist in negotiations to try and solve the conflict.

The workers, however, have refused to enter into any dialogue over the issue, until two of their colleagues currently in police custody are released. The two were arrested when they threw stones against a vehicle carrying a contingent of riot police to the sugar plantation.

The authorities refused to release the two, arguing that the strike and the violence against the police vehicles are completely separate issues.

The company’s managers say they are open to dialogue, but claim they have no choice but to deduct social security contributions from the cane cutters’ wages, since this is a legal obligation, regardless of the type of contract signed with the workers.

The workers dispute this, arguing that the social security law does not cover casual workers on short contracts. Strikers (who insisted on anonymity), told reporters it makes no sense that they have three per cent of their wages deducted for Social Security, when they are on contracts that lasts only six months, with no guarantee that they will be renewed.

"Under such a situation, how will we get our money back ?", asked some of them, adding "we will only go back to work with a guarantee that we will no longer suffer such deductions".

Strikers also complained that different workers suffered different deductions, but the Maputo Provincial Labour Inspector, Amancio Langa, said that the amount depends on each worker’s wage, from which three per cent is deducted.

Langa insisted that the deductions must continue, because they are enshrined both in the law on social security, and in the contracts signed between the workers and their employer.

The Maragra plantation and mill are owned by South Africa’s largest sugar producer, the Illovo group.