PSMI workers, management clash

Zim Now Writer

Employees of the Premier Service Medical Investments, a division of the Premier Service Medical Aid Society – the country’s largest medical insurance firm by subscriber base – have written to the company’s acting managing director, George Kutoka requesting him to follow legal guidelines in implementing the institution’s strategies.

This comes after management submitted a staff rationalisation document, which included a retrenchment proposal, to the parent company, PSMAS.

The proposed retrenchment proposal will see most low-ranking PSMI employees going jobless.

In a memo to Kutoka on Monday, the workers’ representative body reminded the acting MD that systems and statutes, not individuals, run organisations.

The memo was copied to Vice President and Health and Child Care Minister Constantino Chiwenga, Health secretary Jasper Chimedza, PSMAS managing director and all PSMI workers.

“As one of the works council constituency, we were never engaged to participate in any meeting to deal with business survival strategies, and consequently, were not part of the document submitted to the PSMAS principal officer,” the memo reads in part.

“Involve both constituencies when you want to be a good leader with the intention of turning around PSMI and be guided by statutes than incompetent individuals who have failed us to this situation where the entity is on its way from the intensive care unit to the mortuary.

“Involve workers representatives in terms of section 12(d) and 25(a) of the Labour Act [Chapter 28:01] for such strategic moves that have a negative outcome to employees.”

Section 12(d)(1) of the Labour Act stipulates that: “Every employer shall ensure that at the earliest possible opportunity, his employees are kept informed of, and consulted in regard to any major changes in production, programmes, organisation or technology that are likely to entail the retrenchment of any employees.”

The workers’ committee also said they will today gather at Parkview Hospital in Harare for the purposes of crafting a parallel survival strategy for the company which they will submit to the principal officer.

“If there is no action taken on our survival strategy or adoption of submitted recommendations, on Wednesday, February 1, 2023 (today), we cannot allow you to let PSMI die a natural death when we have ideas on how to turn it around,” the workers said.

“Moreover, we cannot allow you to submit a retrenchment report without exhausting all remedies prior to retrenchment and crafting the report unilaterally without the works council as enshrined in the Labour Act [Chapter 28:01].”

PSMI, which has been in the news for some time now, operates clinics, laboratories, pharmacies, hospitals, dental and rehabilitation centres throughout the country.

Early this year, PSMI was forced to close its clinics over myriad challenges that include funding, which resulted in failure to pay employees.

Last year, government had to twice chip in with rescue packages to enable PSMI to purchase drugs for its pharmacies as well as pay workers’ salary arrears.