Mozambique: Business Leader Insults Labour Minister

Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)

OPINION of Paul Fauvet
Maputo

A senior business representative has accused Mozambique's Labour Minister, Helena Taipo, of "terrorism".

Cited in Friday's issue of the weekly paper "O Pais", Adelino Buque, the deputy chair of the Mozambican Commercial Association, attacked Taipo's decision to cancel the work permit of John Mortimer, manager of the Mozambican branch of the security company Group 4 Securicor (G4S).

Taipo took action against Mortimer after he disobeyed a Labour Ministry instruction to make redundancy payments to about 250 guards employed by Wackenhut (a G4S subsidiary) to guard US embassy premises. They were laid off in November when the embassy declined to renew its contract with the company.

Buque, apparently ignorant of G4S's unsavoury reputation for bad labour relations across the globe, has come to the defence of Mortimer. What makes his outburst all the more surprising is that Buque is best known as a columnist in the Mozambican press, writing a stream of articles strongly in favour of the ruling Frelimo Party, the same party of which Taipo is a prominent member.

Buque accused Taipo of irresponsibility and of terrifying the business class. He thought there should have been "a more thoughtful, more respectable" way of dealing with Mortimer, but instead "the Labour Minister has opted for the easiest path".

He then made the astonishing claim that Taipo was "committing terrorism against businessmen. People go to sleep and don't know what's going to happen to them in the morning".

Apparently Buque believes that G4S is a small outfit that has difficulty finding money to pay compensation to the workers it lays off. He protested that Taipo had only given the company seven days to pay the redundant workers the equivalent of 300,000 dollars. "Where is it going to find the money ?", Buque asked plaintively.

From its London headquarters, perhaps. For G4S is the largest security company in the world, with operations spanning the globe, and boasts that it is a leader in this industry.

"O Pais" and its associated television station, STV, seem to be running a campaign against Taipo. Buque's outburst also featured heavily on STV news, and an opinion column on the back page of "O Pais", signed by Jeremias Langa, the editorial director of STV, denounced the alleged "radicalism" of Taipo.

Langa accused Taipo of seeking "revenge" for Mortimer's defiance of the Ministry order to pay his redundant workers. He claimed there was a contradiction between Taipo's treatment of Mortimer, and President Armando Guebuza's statement, on his recent visit to London, that there is "a good business environment" in Mozambique.

He lectured Taipo, telling her to be "less radical and to avoid unnecessary xenophobia". Langa did not stoop quite as low as Buque, but he did claim that the minister had acted "like an angry general, thirsty to prove her power".

Both Buque and Langa are clearly unaware that Mozambique is not the only place where G4S is in conflict with its workers.

Across the world, from Indonesia to Kenya, from Panama to South Africa, G4S has a reputation as a brutal, careless and penny- pinching employer, with no regard for the human rights of its workers.

So much so, that there is now an international campaign against this company, which on Tuesday organised a day of action against G4S in more than 20 countries.

In Greece, workers say that "when they tried to speak out about G4S's illegal withholding of wages, they were demoted and threatened with physical violence".

In Panama workers have been demonstrating outside the G4S local office for the past two months, protesting against unfair working conditions and unfair sackings.

From South Africa come reports of "whites only" toilets in G4S premises, well over a decade after the fall of apartheid.

"Black security officers are treated as not human", protested one G4S employee, Frans Phala.

In September, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), named G4S as a "worst employer", and said it should be banned from providing services at the football World Cup, due to be held in South Africa in 2010.

Unions in 19 countries, representing over 132,000 G4S workers, have come together to form the "Alliance for Justice at G4S", and are working with SEIU to force the company to clean up its act.

A resolution signed by these 19 unions declares "In many of the countries where G4S operates there is a pattern of disregard for the home country's labour laws, refusal to honour court decisions, aggressive battles against union campaigns for improvements, and refusal to recognise unions".

The unions have also delivered an official complaint against G4S to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and are asking the government of Britain, where the company is headquartered, to investigate allegations of wrongdoing.

Mozambique certainly needs foreign investment - but from reputable companies that treat their workforce decently. Given its current international record, G4S does not fall into that category.