Absent Without Leave (AWOL) in Zimbabwe

The acronym (AWOL) is a military term generally used to describe someone who is Absent Without Leave. In the labour and employment context in Zimbabwe, absence without leave (AWOL) is the unauthorised absence of an employee from work without leave or a reasonable cause in a year.

An employee has an obligation to give a satisfactory reason from being absent from work. Put differently, there has to be a genuine or valid reason for one’s absence from work. The Supreme Court in Mhowa v Beverly Building Society 1998 (1) ZLR 546 (SC) 549 held that:

“It was common cause that the appellant deliberately absented himself for a period of working days in excess of those permitted after having been ordered by the Society to report for duty and hold his services available. And I am prepared to assume in favour of the respondent that the Tribunal was correct in its understanding of the law that the noting of an appeal to it did not suspend the operation of the works council's determination that the appellant was to be demoted. From this, it follows that the appellant had no lawful excuse to absent himself from work for a period of five days or more. The fact that he genuinely believed that the determination of the works council was wrong and that he had been unjustly demoted did not afford him a ground in law to disobey the order. As a matter of law, he had to comply with it until the Tribunal allowed the appeal and set aside the determination”.