LUSAKA, June 16 (Reuters) – A strike over wages at Zambia
Sugar, a unit of South Africa’s Illovo Sugar,
has ended after the company awarded permanent workers a 15
percent pay rise, the sugar producer and a union said on
Saturday.
Workers at the company’s Nakambala Sugar Estate south of the
capital Lusaka went on strike on Tuesday demanding a 35 percent
pay rise.
The company was losing 2,000 tonnes of production each day
of the strike.
As part of the deal agreed on Friday, seasonal workers were
granted a 12 percent wage hike, the company and the National
Union of Plantation and Allied Workers (NUPAW) said in a joint
statement.
“Almost all of the workers returned to work yesterday,” a
company spokesman told Reuters.
Zambia Sugar expects its sugar output to increase by more
than 7 percent to over 400,000 tonnes in the current 2012/2013
season.
(Reporting by Chris Mfula; Editing by John Stonestreet)
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