By ANDREW MUKOMA
Minister of Labour and Social Security, Brenda Tambatamba has called on the unions in the tourism sector to be united.
Ms.Tambatamba said this during the meeting when the Hotel Catering Tourism and Allied Workers of Zambia paid a courtesy call on her at the office.
She revealed that COVID 19 remains the biggest challenge the industry was facing.
The Minister also said that COVID has affected all the sectors of the economy.
She noted however, that the levels and degrees in the manner the sectors are affected may vary in many ways indicating that the tourism and hospitality is one that has a lot of travelers which makes it unique that it can be analysed as one of the most affected.
She reiterated that issuing policies to help the sector currently is a pertinent issue that is not supposed to be done without proper consultation but needs to be critically analysed to understand what is being put in place are not interventions that will be overcome by the latest pandemic called the Omicron delta.
She further encouraged the unions in the sector to stand together and present their challenges to Government with one voice.
This was contained in a statement released to the Daily Nation in Livingstone.
The minister revealed that the ministry will attend to their issues together with others facing similar challenges in the industry to avoid fragmenting unions by attending to them individually.
And speaking earlier, President of Hotel Catering Tourism and Allied Workers, Michelo Chizyuka disclosed that their industry was the most affected and many people continue losing jobs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr. Chizyuka added that some of the employers in the tourism sector are avoiding to employ workers as a gimmick to fail to reach the numbers of employees prescribed by law to allow unions to enter into a recognition agreement with companies.
He further lamented that employers were also opting to engage trainees on industrial attachment in order to evade reaching the prescribed number of employees for the formulation of the recognition agreement and called on Government to intervene.
The Minister has since requested the office of the Labour Commissioner to address the concerns of the union.
Author
