US retail chain blamed for strike
16/10/2008
About 800 workers at a textile factory in Dar es Salaam have gone on strike after their employer, CAMI Apparel, failed to pay salaries on time.
Workers called on the Tanzanian government to intervene and said pay and conditions at the facility were poor at the best of times; they said they had been warned that they would lose their jobs if they spoke to the press about their plight.
CAMI chief executive, Toon Vandamme, has been quoted in Tanzanian media as confirming that, by mid-October, his workers had not yet received their salaries for September. But he said a major US sports and casual apparel retailer was to blame the company's financial predicament. The US company, which has more than 250 stores and places great emphasis on its ability to source products cheaply, is CAMI's major client but has not, Mr Vandamme alleged, paid invoices worth $600,000 on time.
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