THE Confederation of Namibian Fishing Associations (CNFA), which represents Namibia’s fishing sector and employs over 14 000 people, says it “will not engage unrecognised unions”.
“We live in a country governed by laws. We cannot engage these unions nor can we support their illegal activities,” said CNFA chairman Matti Amukwa.
He and representatives of the forum for human resources in the industry (who were also at a press conference last Friday) said that any union must first be registered and audited before they can be become a recognised union. The industry already has recognition agreements with existing unions like the Namibia Seamen and Allied Workers Union, the Namibia Fishing Industries and Fishermen Workers Union, and Namibia Food and Allied Workers Union.
The press conference was held in light of the current illegal strike by hundreds of fishermen because of alleged poor working conditions and wages. The strike, which started nearly two weeks ago, led to workers siding with the ‘unrecognised’ Metal Mining, Maritime and Construction (MMMC) union (led by Petrus Immanuel) and met President Hage Geingob in Windhoek last week to seek his intervention. MMMC is affiliated to the Namibia National Labour Organisation (Nanlo), whose president is Evilastus Kaaronda.
Amukwa and the HR forum urged workers to return to work as soon as possible and let the recognised unions, companies and the labour ministry continue negotiations for better conditions for the workers. These negotiations, however, have been ongoing since June last year.
“This is a sound, legal and constructive process which is currently being coordinated by the labour ministry and which also involves local and foreign independent consultants and experts on the matter to asses the situation,” Amukwa explained, saying the aim was a memorandum of understanding to guide the alignment of the current collective agreements and working conditions with the companies to the labour law and international labour standards.
Amukwa accused MMMC for having “made all efforts to kidnap the process”.
“Through misleading statements, false promises, unfounded accusations and generalising very punctual situations, this unrecognised union has managed to stir unrest within the seagoing employees in our industry; ignoring any legal channels and disrespecting our ministries, leaders and country at large with wide-ranging impacts,” he said.
Asked about the validity of the MMMC, Kaaronda told The Namibian that companies are the ones who recognise unions as exclusive bargaining agencies – “simply to engage in a collective bargaining process that includes salary increments for instance”.
“The issues at hand have nothing to do with the collective bargaining process. This is about rights of workers, such as not being paid for overtime service according to the law. For that workers have a right to complain about to the company and to the union,” said Kaaronda.
He said Nanlo was a registered union and operates within Namibia’s laws and to that end it has “every right” to raise all concerns brought to it by its members when those concerns pertain to specific issues of rights, which in this case pertain to overtime and extra time, and health and safety issues.
According to him, this has nothing to do with collective bargaining.
Asked who was orchestrating the strike, Kaaronda said: “No one is orchestrating the action except the workers themselves and the workers are members of MMMC, which is affiliated to Nanlo. The orchestration is in the hands of the workers themselves. It’s the workers’ collective action.”
Amukwa, however, called the strike illegal and irresponsible, “heightening the risk for people and companies alike, where ultimately everyone loses.”
He said the striking workers and MMMC must identify their claims and not just make “blanket statements that cannot hold water”.
He said if some workers lose their jobs because of their illegal action it would be “very unfortunate”.
“We’ve done all we could to tell them to return to work but they continue the illegal strike. They were informed that there are consequences. There will be a few casualties,” a human resource official said.
