According to the president of the Democratic Union of Workers of Industry, Commerce and Services of Luanda (Sindetraincosl), António Adão Correia, the situation has dragged on since 2020 due to the employer's failure to comply with its social obligations, following collective redundancies.
"So far they have made the payment of compensation and the payment of compensation and retroactive payments is missing, since we had salaries indexed to the dollar. Hence the reasons for our claims, which we will continue to make with the employer", said this Wednesday António Adão Correia, in statements to Lusa.
Siind was the manager of 22 industrial units, allocated to Sonangol, located in the Luanda-Bengo Special Economic Zone (ZEE) and which were privatized under the Government's Privatization Program (ProPriv).
The leader of Sindetraincosl said that the entity recently issued a statement in which it "grossly lies" about fulfilling its obligations to more than 1,300 former workers.
"Because it (the company) did not comply with the payments it must make to workers resulting from the collective redundancies that were made, and what we see is that Siind wants to make use of and keep the workers' money", he said.
António Adão Correia also regretted that the process of privatization of the manufacturing units, led by the Institute for the Management of State Assets and Participations (IGAPE), had taken place without the union's follow-up.
"We, the union, did not follow this process, the factories were sold, the workers were sent to unemployment", he recalled.
The group of affected workers promoted several demonstrations in 2021, in front of Sonangol's headquarters, in the center of the capital, to demand the settlement of compensation and retroactive payments.
"Siind has not complied with the social obligations arising from the collective redundancies, so we have been demanding with manifestations following our writing to the General Labor Inspectorate, the President of the Republic, Sonangol and other entities to pressure Siind to do the payments".
"Some payments were made by force, but there is a lack of compensation and retroactive payments", concluded the union official.
