Chicken Hut ‘ chickens out ‘ on paying wages, blames Covid-19
Harare- FAST food outlet Chicken Hut is alleged to have neglected paying employees salaries with a wage bill deficit backdated to January 2022, Express Mail Zim has learnt.
The company chief executive is alleged to have communicated to employees via WhatsApp alerting them that the salary arrears will be settled once they relocate to new branches in Madokero and Harare Airport.
“We were told that all will be well once we relocate to new branches but nothing materialised.
“The company is making huge profits through sales and partnership with South African activist Thato Molosankwe in one on their CSR campaigns,” said an employee who preferred anonymity.
Speaking through their lawyers, Chicken Hut acknowledged the non payment of salaries and cited several inhibitants, chiefly the Covid-19 pandemic and the general challenging business environment.
Express Mail Zim publishes here under the full transcript of the lawyer’s response:
“We have had issues with salary payments which can be natural in a challenging economy, especially when we were on an expansion drive and then markets like Vic Falls where hit with Covid. We opened Vic Falls during Covid as we wanted to offer employment opportunities even during a challenging time. Any salary issues that we might have has been dealt with through the necessary NEC channels.
We did not close branches we relocated. This is normal in our industry. Globally brands that we look upto for inspiration, such as ChickFila have done this too.
We use various models of communication, we believe in embracing the digital world, this you can see with our social media following compared to other brands that are bigger than us in this country. Suffice to say staff have constantly been kept upto speed with any changes to their circumstances. We have gone a step further to offer first right of refusal to affected staff when the first of the relocation branches was opened and only 1 staff member took the offer and we have evidence of non interest from the sampled staff.
Business has not been easy in Zimbabwe however they are challenges across the globe and we aim to focus on the positives of our country as they are many. We believe we will do our best to go back to the markets we left and we will look for those who have been part of our team first before hiring new people.”
