By Peter Abanabasazi
Workers of Bugambe Tea Estate in Kikuube district that is managed by Mcleod Russel Uganda limited have gone on strike over the failure by the Company to increase their salaries.
The employees went on strike following a promise by the company to increase their salaries every year.
On Monday, over 2500 workers laid down their tools over salary/wage increment.
It is reported that during the strike, some of the workers violently assaulted some of their colleagues who had refused to join the strike thus injuring a section of the workers.
Security personnel manning the factory arrested one perpetuator and handed over him to Katanga police post in Bugambe sub county however he was released on bond as the police is hunting for more other workers.
It took the intervention of the district security team led by the Kikuube Resident District Commissioner Amlan Tumusiime to calm the angry workers who were demanding their bosses and the National Union Plantation Agriculture workers to respond to their grievances.
During the meeting, workers argued that their salaries/ wages were supposed to be increased every January annually but they had not received any increment.
Robert Balikenda, the human resource manager read to the workers a notice from the tea company that indicated an interim increment of Sh17,000 for grade six workers, Sh15,000 for grade seven workers, Sh4,000 per kilogram for sheer pluckers, and Sh3,000 per kilogram for SOS/MTH pluckers as the negotiations between the company and the union go on.
However, the workers seemed not convinced. Jackson Ebeneeza, an employee said that such an increment was too little given to current cost of living.
Amlan Tumusiime, the Kikuube Resident District Commissioner, Christopher Nkalu, the Kikuube district speaker together with Bugambe tea estate operation manager Stephen Rajesh convinced the workers to appreciate the increment and call off the strike as they wait for outcomes from the negotiations.
The strike was later called off and by the time we left the estate, workers who included tea pluckers had resumed to work and were shortly joined by the Kikuube resident district commissioner.
