Workers up in arms but TRC goes

A fresh labour crisis erupted at the head offices of the giant state-owned Tanzania Railway Corporation in Dar es Salaam yesterday, as a new strategic investor officially took over the management of its operations. Hundreds of TRC workers inherited by the new investor, Tanzania Railway Ltd, made a spirited but unsuccessful attempt to block the facility?s long-awaited official handover. The corporation, whose condition is generally seen as pathetic, was finally handed over to TRL - a new firm jointly set up by the Government of Tanzania (49 per cent) and Rites Company Ltd of India (51 per cent). The latter operates as a wing of the Government of India. In their new demands, the workers wanted to know why some senior TRC officials now retrenched after being paid hefty amounts of money in terminal benefits were being engaged by TRL on contractual basis. They also demanded a voluntary agreement from their new employer. ``It`s unacceptable and unfair. We don?t like to work with people already retrenched after being paid huge sums of money in miscellaneous benefits and then being re-employed under the new management,`` read a placard placed in front of one of the locomotives. ``Most of these senior officials received 50m/-, 90m/-. Others pocketed 100m/- as terminal benefits but invited back to serve the same post,`` noted a disgruntled employee who refused to be named. ``Retrenching people initially seen as redundant and then re-engaging them in their previous positions while neglecting those still in service amounts to fronting double standards,`` he added. The handing-over ceremony was temporarily halted as the workers gathered at the corporation`s premises, some yelling and others cursing that last stage of TRC`s concession agreement. Sources linked the reinstatement of the retrenched employees to suspicious deals between them and the management of the defunct TRC but this was hard to prove. However, the Government finally succumbed to the workers? pressure and decided to suspend the engagement under TRL of all former TRC workers previously off-loaded, pending further action. ``The Government takes your reservations and complaints very seriously. From now onwards all contracts of the workers in question stand suspended, pending further consultations on the matter between the new (TRL) management and trade union leaders,`` declared Bernard Liamba, Director of Railway Transport in the Infrastructure Development ministry. ``For now, all those concerned will have to go back home immediately and await a joint decision by the TRL management and the trade union,`` he told the hundreds of crowds assembled at the TRC offices. Speaking at the handing-over ceremony, Infrastructure Development minister Andrew Chenge said the Government would study the workers? concerns very carefully and make decisions as fair to all the respective parties as possible. ?We plan to engage the TRL management and trade union leaders in working on the workers? concerns and demands before making a definitive decision. The government pledges to handle their (workers) case as judiciously as it can but they must respect the laws of the land,`` he added. Chenge was upbeat that, when fully operational, TRL would increase the new-look facility?s capacity to handle cargo and expand the country?s trade and business with neigbouring countries like Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. TRL Managing Director Narasimhaswami Jayaram meanwhile said the expected development of the Central and Tanga-Arusha lines and the resumption of six-a-week passenger train services would be given special attention. He assured the workers of supportive work terms and conditions, insisting that dealing with the priorities mentioned would not mean neglecting any others. ``We will move step by step, depending on the resources that will be at our disposal,`` he added.