Peter Mutasa, the Union’s president, told the Daily News yesterday that company closures in the past two decades had dealt a huge blow on them and their membership.
ZCTU membership is made up of the formally employed.
“ZCTU had a membership of 400 000 in 1990s but our membership is now around... 100 000.
“This reflects the effects of company closures and wave of job losses,” Mutasa said.
“We are in a deep crisis as a country. We are all suffering as workers in Zimbabwe,” he said, adding that “workers in the formal sector are working in difficult conditions some of them are not getting their salaries”.
He said only 5,5 percent of economically active people are currently employed in the formal sector.
Despite the drastic loss of membership, he said: “We still control the some sectors.”
Mutasa added that they were going to join vendors and other informal sector players in planning a mass protest against the economic decay.
“...we are still consulting with all sectors of the economy.”
ZCTU was formed in February 1981, bringing together 52 unions that had existed separately.
At the time, unionists that were closely associated with the ruling Zanu PF party took over the reins of the labour movement.
Thus, during the first five years of independence, the relationship between Zanu PF and by extension, government and the ZCTU was largely paternalistic.
It was only after the collapse of the then executive of the ZCTU, and its second congress held in 1985 that a more independent leadership, largely drawn from the larger and more professionally run unions that the relationship between the ruling party and the ZCTU was reduced to arms-length. Daily News
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