Striking employees of TransNamib on Monday denied accusations by their employer that they allegedly violated strike rules at Tsumeb, Walvis Bay, Windhoek and Keetmanshoop.

The workers were reacting to a media statement which was issued on Monday morning by TransNamib, pointing at them to have allegedly intimidated, harassed and damaged company equipment at the four train stations when they found some non-striking employees performing official duties there.

“Bullying, intimidation and harassing of any non-striking worker or damaging company equipment is an absolute violation of the strike rules, and as such we will now use the legal recourse to remedy the matter,” TransNamib vowed in a media statement.

The accused workers through Namibia Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Natau) national coordinator, Helvi Hamukoshi denied the allegations, saying these are all rumours.

“For now those allegations are rumours, until evidence will be provided to us,” she said.

Hamukoshi added that Natau has thus also instructed its legal team to attend to TransNamib’s allegations.

Natau representative at Tsumeb, Simon Ketonge on Monday said that out of the 60 TransNamib employees stationed at Tsumeb, 55 are striking and adhering to the strike rules, therefore, the strike continues in that spirit until their demands are met.

The industrial action started last week Wednesday countywide after TransNamib and its employees failed to reach an agreement in wage negotiations.

The workers are demanding a 7 per cent salary increase across the board, 11 per cent on housing and N.dollars 500 on transport allowance.

TransNamib’s Corporate Communications Manager, Abigail Raubenheimer last week said the company on many occasions made it clear that it is not in a financial position to meet the wage demands.

Raubenheimer reminded the striking workers of the no work, no pay rule, saying the rule will apply to them.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency