A labour arbitrator has ordered the Ministry of Health and Social Services to pay N$2.78 million to 21 former employees of the ministry whose employment contracts were not renewed when they expired at the end of 2022.
The order was made in an arbitration award issued by labour arbitrator David Itana of the Office of the Labour Commissioner on Monday.
Itana found that the health ministry dismissed 21 cleaners and porters who were employed at Katutura Intermediate Hospital without a valid and fair reason and without following fair procedure.
Itana also found that a decision of the ministry not to renew the fixed-term contracts on which the cleaners and porters were employed “arbitrarily frustrated the established legitimate expectation of the applicants to be retained and progressively absorbed into permanent employment”.
Given the fact that more than three and a half years have passed since the former employees’ employment with the ministry ended at the end of December 2022, he decided not to order their reinstatement in their former positions, Itana said. Instead, he ordered the ministry to compensate the former employees by paying them each 27 months’ salary.
For the former employees who were working as cleaners, the compensation ordered to be paid amounts to about N$122 200 each, while former porters are to be paid N$166 000 each.
The former employees lodged a dispute at the Office of the Labour Commissioner in November 2022, after they had been informed that the health ministry would not renew their employment contracts at the end of December 2022.
Itana recounted in his ruling that the 21 applicants started service at Katutura Intermediate Hospital as volunteers in December 2017, after the ministry terminated a cleaning contract that it had with a private service provider.
The 21 applicants were appointed as cleaners and porters on fixed-term contracts from August 2020 onward, and their contracts were renewed on multiple occasions after that, until December 2022.
A labour arbitrator who previously dealt with the dispute found in April this year that the former employees had a legitimate expectation of the renewal of their employment contracts until they could be absorbed into permanent positions with the ministry, and that the non-renewal of their contracts at the end of December 2022 constituted a dismissal in terms of the Labour Act, Itana noted.
The ministry has noted its disagreement with that finding by the previous arbitrator and reserved its right to challenge the ruling on review or appeal, Itana recorded.
The evidence reveals that the ministry approached the termination of the fixed-term contracts “in a heavy-handed administrative manner”, without genuine consultation taking place between the ministry and the employees, Itana remarked.
The 21 applicants were represented by lawyer Jackson Nakale. Government lawyer Wana Chinsembu represented the health ministry.
The post 21 former Katutura Hospital workers win N$2.78m award appeared first on The Namibian.