Sunshare employees complain of forced confinement, wrong gratuity

NOEL IYOMBWA writes EMPLOYEES at SunShare, a Chinese company have accused management of forcing them to sleep at the company for fear of spreading Covid-19. However, the company human resource department said this directive had been reversed. And the company has also been accused of terminating some contracts of employees without paying them the correct amount of money. Meanwhile, the retrenched SunShare employees on Thursday harrassed company Human Resources officer Raymond Chibwe when they went to deliver a letter from the labour office. The angry employees claim the company has not paid them their gratuity after their contracts were terminated. The Human Resources officer complained that the employees went to deliver a letter but in the process they became violent and harrassed him. Mr Chibwe said that the angry employees could did not deliver the letter from the ministry of labour but instead forced themselves to  One of the employees told the Sun that seven employees were forced to be spending nights at the company for fear that when they go out they would contract the virus and spread it to other employees. She said that the employees were subjected to sleeping in three offices without providing them with bedding and breakfast. She further accused management of ill-treating employees and deducting their salaries when they missed work even when they have sick notes from the clinic. Meanwhile, another employee has disclosed that more than 15 employees have been laid off without giving them money which they worked. He said that the affected employees have not been told the reason behind the termination of employment. He called on the Lusaka province minister Bowman Lusambo to help the affected employees. And company Human Resources officer Raymond Chibwe confirmed that some employees were sleeping at the company premises. He said that the decision was made by of the management but that when his office learnt about it, he advised management that it was against the guidelines set by Ministry of Health hence the employees were sent home. Mr. Chibwe said that reason behind the decision was to bring essential employees closer to the company. He also confirmed that breakfast was not provided by the company but only lunch and supper was given to the employees. “On that one, it’s true some employees were sleeping at our Washama Road office but I learnt about it a week later and I immediately advised management that we should not continue with this,” he said. “And they were not given breakfast but lunch and supper was provided, we had some employees who selected to be closer to management but at the end it wasn’t in line with Ministry of Health guidelines so we shut down that operation because the decision was made by one of the Chinese,” he said. The Human resource officer however denied ill-treating some employees. He confirmed that some employee’s contracts were terminated and that the affected employees have been paid their benefits. Mr. Chibwe said that some employees were only sent home on leave but not fired. He also denied that the company deducted from salaries for employees who missed work even when they have sick notes. The Human Resource officer said that some employees had a tendency of providing fake sick notes. The Sun