ZIMBABWE is on the verge of a complete shutdown as private
and public sector workers as well as college students plan to take to the
streets.
Teachers, lecturers and students are planning to coalesce
with the rest of the civil service for a strike that could cripple essential
services and the start of the school calendar tomorrow.
Government workers last week rejected an offer by
government to double their wages and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU) is planning “mother-of-all” demonstrations to press government to
address key national issues and reverse “anti-poor people policies”.
The 97% salary hike would have seen the lowest paid
government worker getting
$2 033.
But the civil servants demanded that their salaries to be
indexed to the United States dollar equivalent to those they earned during
dollarisation period.
Alternatively, the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ),
Zimbabwe
Teachers Association and Zimbabwe National Students Union
(Zinasu) as well as the rest of the civil servants are pressing government to
raise wages to bring the lowest paid civil servant to a monthly salary of $5
000.
The confrontation is likely to start tomorrow when schools
open, with PTUZ secretary-general Raymond Majongwe calling for a united front
with pupils, parents and teachers to confront the government.
“Government must be taught … economic volatility in this
country is increasing every day. Economic and political frustration is
increasing every day. It’s better they engage people and they give us what we
are worth because we are offering our labour to the country for the benefit of
the nation and we need solidarity from everybody, the kids the parents and
everybody out there,” he said.
“Why do people want to justify that they will seat and
smile as government behaves like a bull in a china shop? You can’t tell me that
somebody who is asking to be paid $6 000 for them to report for duty is asking
for too much!”
Acting Primary and Secondary Education minister Amon
Murwira said he was aware of the concerns by teachers, but said the matter was
being handled by the Public Service Commission (PSC) and an announcement would
be made soon.
“We have hope, I have hope, but at the moment, this is
being dealt with the PSC and an announcement will be made regarding that,” he
said.
Government has failed to effectively deal with the
industrial action by junior doctors, which has continued for over four months,
with hospitals partially closed.
Munyaradzi Gwisai, leader of the International Socialist
Organisation in Zimbabwe, has called on all workers to have a joint
demonstration and a shutdown of government business, saying workers have had
enough and should not allow themselves to work for slave wages.
“We now need a united front of all victims of austerity to
lead the resistance against austerity and the junta. Students, workers, youths,
vendors and the villagers … we have to learn the lesson that the late Morgan
Tsvangirai, as secretary-general of ZCTU, learnt then that sometimes
negotiations yield nothing. You can’t keep talking to people who are not
listening.
There is no bigger army that the power of the workers and
villagers,” Gwisai said.
Irked by the increase in college fees against poor
salaries, Zinasu has also warned it will be taking to the streets to protest
what it called attempts to push them out of school.
“They pay student teachers $150 and not even constantly,
they pay our mothers $100, then they proceed to us students and demand $5 000
per term, $15 000 per year exclusive of other necessities … They must be
stopped, they must be resisted. They are evil,” Zinasu said in a statement in
response to a statement from Seke Teachers College, which increased fees for
resident teacher students from $2 416 to $5 016 effective January 10.
The ZCTU has already declared 2020 as a year for resisting
slave wages and confronting government over poor policies and the
poverty-inducing austerity measures.
“We have been mandated by the workers to ensure that we
resist all these slave wages and engage in peaceful and constitutional action,
which will end the suffering of workers, toiling every day yet they can’t pay
just rentals or send their children to school. As we speak right now, many of
our members are being evicted from their homes. Action has to be now,” ZCTU
secretary-general Peter Mutasa said.
He added that it was important for all workers to join
hands and fight from the same corner.
“Our message is that it is no longer effective for workers
to fight from their different unions or groups. It is no longer tenable for the
doctors to protest alone. It is also no longer effective for teachers to fight
the government alone. The same goes for nurses, bank employees or those (who)
do general cleaning. They can’t fight from their corners,” he said.
“It is also now impossible for workers who work for famous
companies to fight without joining hands with those who are self-employed. So
we are saying let us have unity of workers who work in formal and informal
sectors. We now also want to see unity in the protests between the workers who
work in cities and those who work in rural areas.”
Mutasa lashed out at President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s call
for people to avoid meat and eat vegetables and potatoes.
“The issue that is bringing us all together as people is
that of hunger. Every person who is working in this country must not be forced
to eat vegetables and potatoes. A worker must get money enough to purchase
foods that constitute a balanced diet,” he said.
Mutasa said workers no longer had any other way of dealing
with the government to solve the multi-layered national crises than to take to
the streets.
“Our message is that we do not have any other way to go
because most avenues have been closed, but we now need to fight oppression and
exploitation of workers. We do not have any other choice. So that is our first
message (to workers) that we are going ahead with demonstrations and we are
going to maintain our stance of fighting government policies which are
oppressing the people,” he said.
The ZCTU has also said it was against government’s
introduction of a mono currency and maintained workers must be paid either in
US dollars or the equivalent of their salaries in the green back as at
September 2017.
Through the Zimbabwe Hospitals Doctors Association (ZHDA),
the doctors — who have been on strike for more than four months now — have
vowed to press on until their demand for better wages is met.
“It has been four months since our members declared
incapacitation, our employer has to date offered a net salary of $3 600
equivalent to less that US$170. A clear breach of our contractual agreement of
net US$1 800. We remain steadfast in our call for a decent wage for our
members,” ZHDA said. Newsday
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