A labour dispute between workers at the Dragados J&P – AVAX joint venture and management has been amicably resolved with the intervention of State Minister Zenebech Tadesse from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MoLSA).

The workers and their labour union had filed suits at regional and federal courts in the Amhara Regional State and Addis Abeba over employee benefits. The workers had also staged demonstrations over the same issue.

The two sides first started an unsuccessful negotiation in October 2005, which the workers eventually boycotted. One of their demands at the time was a salary increase of 400 to 900 Br. Other issues included transport, medical care, and food and camp facilities.

The company’s position during these failed talks was that it would not continue negotiating unless the charges that had been filed in courts since 2003 were all dropped.

Beside this judicial issue, a management source had told Fortune then that most of the 16 issues raised by the workers had been solved.
 

In July 2006, the company was forced to come to another negotiation after the workers managed to secure a ruling in a Dawa Chefo and Kewet Woreda Court in the Amhara Regional State freezing 15 million Br worth of company properties.

The main actor in the most recent two week negotiation was MoLSA; there were also the Ethiopian Roads Authority, the Labour Affairs Bureau of the Amhara Regional State and the European Union.
 

The company has agreed to pay the employees for their unused annual leaves as well as a severance payment equivalent to 10 to 12 months’ salary when the project is completed.

The workers, in return, have agreed to drop all charges in all courts, which led to the lifting of the decision to freeze the company properties.

The company has been constructing three roads, funded by the European Union. It has already completed the Addis Abeba - Mojo road, while the Addis Abeba – Jimma road is still underway.  The road where the company faced problems with its employees was the 187Km road from Tarma Ber to Kombolcha in the north of the Amhara Regional State, which has only 15Km left before completion.