{"id":27254,"date":"2022-08-10T17:08:11","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T17:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/interdict-against-strikers-at-cheetah-cement"},"modified":"2022-08-10T17:25:33","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T17:25:33","slug":"interdict-against-strikers-at-cheetah-cement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/interdict-against-strikers-at-cheetah-cement","title":{"rendered":"Interdict against strikers at Cheetah Cement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. <\/strong><\/span>CHEETAH Cement employees taking part in a strike may not interfere with the company’s operations and the free movement of people and traffic to and from Cheetah Cement’s plant at Otjiwarongo, a judge ordered in the Windhoek Labour Court yesterday.<\/b><\/p>\n

In an interim interdict issued by judge Marlene Tommasi, the Mineworkers Union of Namibia (MUN) is also being restrained from interfering with Cheetah Cement’s operations, blocking access to the company’s premises, or inciting, encouraging or assisting anyone to intimidate or threaten non-striking employees and contractors of the company.<\/p>\n

The interdict, which the company applied for on an urgent basis, further authorises the Namibian Police to remove any striking Cheetah Cement employees or MUN officials from the company’s premises if they act in breach of the court’s order, to take steps to ensure unrestricted access to the premises, and to protect the company’s property, employees and contractors if the strike turns violent.<\/p>\n

The court’s order is in force until 12 September at this stage, unless the MUN or striking employees approach the court before then to challenge the interim interdict.<\/p>\n

Eighty employees of Cheetah Cement, which is the trading name of the Chinese-owned company Whale Rock Cement, have been striking for nearly three weeks, after the company and the MUN failed to reach an agreement in negotiations about wage increases and improved conditions of service.<\/p>\n

The MUN referred a dispute with the company to the Office of the Labour Commissioner on 12 April.<\/p>\n

The union informed the Office of the Labour Commissioner that it and Whale Rock Cement have over several rounds of negotiations been unable to reach an agreement, after the company refused to offer employees more than an annual wage increase of two percent from February 2021.<\/p>\n

The MUN has proposed a salary increase of 25%, a monthly housing allowance of N$4 000, four days of paid leave per month for employees, and other benefits that it wants the company to provide.<\/p>\n

The company has informed its employees it would be a no-work-no-pay strike if the employees stopped working.<\/p>\n

In an affidavit filed at the court, the general manager of Whale Rock Cement, Kevin Lee, claims striking employees and MUN representatives breached the rules agreed for the strike by threatening non-striking employees and by hindering and obstructing non-striking employees and contractors from performing their duties.<\/p>\n

Lee also claims that striking employees and union representatives effectively shut down the company’s operations by blocking entrances and exits to Cheetah Cement’s premises at Otjiwarongo.<\/p>\n

Striking employees in turn have accused the company of using scab labour in the place of employees who are on strike.<\/p>\n

According to Lee, though, the company has been making use of employees of the labour-hire company Africa Personnel Services (APS) since July last year, and those workers are not doing the work of striking employees.<\/p>\n

In terms of the agreed strike rules, APS employees may not be hindered in their duties and they may also not do the work of striking employees \u2013 not even on a voluntary basis, Lee says.<\/p>\n

He has further informed the court that Cheetah Cement loses income amounting to more than N$1,2 million every day that it is prevented from having cement transported from its plant.<\/p>\n

The company has also lost more than N$1 million after the kiln it uses to produce cement was started and heated, and then could not be used as planned because the company was prevented from moving clinker used in the production process from a warehouse to the kiln, Lee says.<\/p>\n

It is facing additional losses of more than N$6 million as well, as it has been unable to have coal that was imported from Botswana transported to Walvis Bay, from where it is supposed to be shipped to a buyer in China, Lee adds.<\/p>\n

The MUN and striking employees, represented by lawyer Edwin Coetzee, did not oppose the granting of the interim interdict.<\/p>\n

Whale Rock Cement was represented by Ramon Maasdorp and Jaco Boltman.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Namibia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. CHEETAH Cement employees taking part in a strike may not interfere with the company’s operations and the free movement of people and traffic to and from Cheetah Cement’s plant at Otjiwarongo, a judge ordered in the Windhoek Labour Court yesterday. In an interim interdict issued by judge Marlene Tommasi, the Mineworkers Union […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":27253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,8,16],"tags":[234,236,233],"class_list":["post-27254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-namibia","tag-namibia"],"yoast_head":"\nInterdict against strikers at Cheetah Cement - Namibia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"CHEETAH Cement employees taking part in a strike may not interfere with the company's operations and the free movemen ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/interdict-against-strikers-at-cheetah-cement\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Interdict against strikers at Cheetah Cement\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"CHEETAH Cement employees taking part in a strike may not interfere with the company's operations and the free movemen ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/interdict-against-strikers-at-cheetah-cement\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Namibia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-08-10T17:08:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-08-10T17:25:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/08\/postQueueImg_5-62f3e9fa6317b.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"405\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/interdict-against-strikers-at-cheetah-cement#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/interdict-against-strikers-at-cheetah-cement\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Interdict against strikers at Cheetah Cement\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-08-10T17:08:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-08-10T17:25:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/interdict-against-strikers-at-cheetah-cement\"},\"wordCount\":680,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/interdict-against-strikers-at-cheetah-cement#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/08\/postQueueImg_5-62f3e9fa6317b.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"africa press\",\"Africa Press-Namibia\",\"namibia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"community\",\"homepage-english\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/interdict-against-strikers-at-cheetah-cement#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/interdict-against-strikers-at-cheetah-cement\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/interdict-against-strikers-at-cheetah-cement\",\"name\":\"Interdict against strikers at Cheetah Cement - 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