Hotelier, African Sun has slashed management salaries by half with the company also losing revenue during the current lockdown according to a leaked memorandum from the Acting HR Director Believe Dirorimwe.
The memorandum says as a result of the effects of the Lockdown Order and the Covid-19 pandemic as a whole, workers are unable to avail themselves for work and the company has no work to avail to owing to circumstances beyond its control, which circumstances can be legally coined ‘force majeure’.
“In an effort to save your job and to ensure that you have at least an income whilst at the same time mitigating the company’s risk of going out of business, the Board has ascertained and resolved that it is only possible to pay employees 50% salary for the months of April and May 2020,” Dirorimwe says.
“In the following months, the salary will accrue at 50% and will stand to be paid when the company recovers from the current trading and financial affliction.”
The HR went on to give conditions for those that would oppose the given memorandum.
“The other option, should you not agree to the proposed 50% salary cut and the other measures set out herein above, is the mutual temporary suspension of contractual obligations on account of impossibility of same on the basis of ‘force majeure’ in the form of Covid-19 pandemic and the aforesaid Ministerial Order,” Dirorimwe
“If you are not part of the critical staff working from home, and have not filled a vacation leave form, you are deemed to be on paid vacation leave with effect from 30 March 2020 to 19 April 2020. Please note this period may be extended.”
“In the event that you had applied for vacation leave, and your leave has coincided with the Lockdown period, you shall remain on vacation leave during that period,” he says.
African Sun closed hotels before the lockdown was announced to protect workers from COVID-19.
The developments come at a time when United Nations World Tourism Authority (UNWTO) estimates that in 2020 global international tourist arrivals could decline between 1% to 3%, down from an estimated growth of 3% to 4% forecast in early January 2020.
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