The Zimbabwean government yesterday announced that it will urgently amend the country’s Labour Act is an effort to prevent inconsistencies in the labour market, which has seen companies arbitrarily terminating employees as a result of a recent Supreme Court judgment, reports allafrica.com.

The judgment, issued last week, indicated that companies could terminate contracts of employment upon issuing three months’ notice, without having to offer an explanation or offer retrenchment opportunities.

Prisca Mupfumira, Public Service, Labour and Social Services Minister, told journalists that while the Supreme Court judges were "correctly and appropriately" guided by the law, companies should exercise maximum restraint in terminating workers' contracts.

"To this end, the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare has been tasked to coordinate the process which should result in the expeditious tabling in Parliament of an amendment Bill to the Labour Act.”

"Meanwhile, Government appeals to the employers to exercise maximum restraint in terminating contracts of employment on notice, pursuant to the Supreme Court ruling," she added.

This announcement came as more firms terminated employment using the same judgment.

Minister Mupfumira said that the government had looked into the labour laws and concluded that they need to be amended in the shortest possible time.

"It was satisfied that the [Supreme Court] bench was correctly and appropriately guided by the law as it stands, noting that the law falls short of a harmonious balance between the interests of the employer and those of the employee," she said.

Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, sitting with four other judges, last Friday unanimously agreed that the common law position placing employees and employers on an equal footing was still operational.

They were deciding a case in which two former Zuva Petroleum managers, Don Nyamande and Kingstone Donga, were challenging termination of their contracts under similar circumstances.

As a result of that common law position, employers have the same right to give notice and terminate employment, inasmuch as a worker can do the same.

The judgment empowers employers to fire workers without going through disciplinary hearings or seeking permission for formal retrenchment.