Former workers of the Laurentina brewery in Maputo, which closed its doors two years ago, on Friday demonstrated again in front of the Labour Ministry, demanding the return of their social security contributions.
Before it was privatised, in 1998, the state company that owned the brewery, SOGERE, had its own pension scheme, and so it was authorised to opt out of the National Social Security Institute (INSS). After 1998, the new management decided to abandon this policy and register the company and its workers with the INSS.
Yet, like so many other private businesses, Laurentina deducted the money from the workers' wages, but did not send it to the INSS.
In 2002 a phoney bankruptcy was staged in order to allow South African Breweries to take over the brand name, close the factory down, switch production to its own brewery, and secure a monopoly on Mozambican brewing. Responsibilities for paying social security fell into the hands of the Company Restructuring Unit (UTRE) of the Planning and Finance Ministry.
Discovering that no money had been sent to the INSS, UTRE wrote out a cheque for over 24 billion meticais. But this covered all deductions from the workers' wages, from 1990 to 2002. It thus liquidated Laurentina's own pension fund which had nothing to do with the INSS. The workers argue that this money does not belong to the INSS and they want it back. The new chairperson of the INSS, Aguiar Mazula, has publicly recognised that depositing all the Laurentina workers' past contributions in the INSS was a mistake, and that the money should be returned. But so far the 400 ex-Laurentina workers have received nothing.
The workers have other complaints concerning the redundancy pay their received. When South African Breweries, through its Mozambican subsidiary CDM, took over Laurentina, it simply closed the factory down, removed the equipment to its own brewery and sacked the workers.
It offered the workers redundancy pay of one and a half months wages for every year of service. The workers, pointing out that under the Labour Law they should receive three months wages for every year of service, refused to accept the money, and are trying to secure greater compensation through the courts.
The protesting workers are also demanding clarification about their shares in the company. When the brewery was privatised, 20 per cent of the shares were reserved for the workers and managers - but they have never received or been paid for these shares, despite a CDM pledge to compensate all Laurentina shareholders. This was the ninth Friday in a row that the ex-Laurentina workers have demonstrated. They promise to go on doing so until their demands are met.
Fonte: AIM
