THE Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) says the
country was now in a humanitarian crisis and accused government of ignoring the
plight of workers and of downplaying the impact of its austerity measures.
In an interview with NewsDay, ZCTU president Peter Mutasa
said workers were suffering, but their pleas were being treated with scorn and
brutality after police arrested 10 officials from the Amalgamated Rural
Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe last Friday, together with their lawyer, Douglas
Coltart. The officials wanted to present a petition to Finance minister Mthuli
Ncube over poor teachers’ salaries of around $500 a month.
“Due to shortages of (electricity) and low domestic demand,
many companies are scaling down and some are closing shop with people losing
jobs; and retrenchments are now common in the labour market. What we have now
is a humanitarian crisis of gigantic proportions,” Mutasa said.
“Workers and trade unions have tried to make government
understand the folly of continuing in this direction of austerity measures, but
this has been met with scorn and brutality, and as a result workers have no
other option than to stop working and to protest until government is ready to
listen,” he said.
Workers from different sectors have declared incapacity due
to the low wages.
In the past two weeks, the police have snuffed out five
attempts by the opposition MDC to hold demonstrations to protest over
government’s handling of the economy.
Zimbabwe’s economy is mired in its worst crisis in a decade
characterised by rolling power cuts, and shortages of fuel, cash, medicines and
increased clampdown on citizens by security forces.
“Everything is getting to a standstill and nothing is
functioning despite the tomfoolery being displayed by some policymakers,
especially the Finance minister Mthuli Ncube and government spokespersons,” he
said.
Mutasa said workers could no longer afford to report for
work, pay rentals, feed their families or pay school fees.
“No amount of brutality must lead to people surrendering
their constitutional rights. Workers will never surrender their collective
power. The ZCTU has completed its consultations and workers have emphatically
demanded that we call for nationwide general strikes until the government
starts to respect citizen engagement. We are announcing the form and dates
soon.
“People are starving and dying in homes due to lack of
medical care. The country is in total darkness and queues for fuel and even
bread are the order of the day. What is a 76% increment from someone that has
increased fees of all government services by over 500%? That is a mockery.
Wages have been eroded by up to eleven-fold since Ncube adopted fascist
economic experiments,” he said after the latest government offer to its
workers.
While prices of goods and services keep going up daily,
including exchange rate movements, salaries of both public and private sector
employees have remained stagnant and they were robbed of their future through
erosion of their pensions and savings, Mutasa said.
“The only solution is to redollarise and have workers earn
the stable currency again or pay salaries based on the prevailing interbank
exchange rate,” he opined.
Mutasa described Ncube’s financial measures as disastrous
neo-liberal economic structural adjustment policies.
“We warned Ncube against Nazi-style economic
authoritarianism of austerity. Instead of taking heed they brutalised and
arrested us,” he said.
The ZCTU president added that the labour laws had been
amended several times in favour of capital, further noting that the judiciary
has been aiding the neo-liberal agenda through retrogressive judgments like the
Zuva decision and many others over the years.
On the Tripartite Negotiation Forum (TNF), Mutasa said it
was dysfunctional and lacked political will.
“The government does not believe in genuine and effective
citizen participation. When we met on June 26, the inaugural meeting after the
TNF Act came into effect; there was only one minister and two deputy ministers
present.
All the other important ministers snubbed it as they
normally do. The resolution of TNF for Cabinet to review Statutory Instrument
142 of 2009 taking into account inputs of both business and labour was also
brushed aside,” he said.
He said demonstrations and any other collective actions
were a legitimate means of exerting pressure on the decision-makers and were
also guaranteed in the Constitution.
The call for nationwide protests comes as police recently
banned MDC’s free Zimbabwe marches and beat up protesters who had gathered for
the Harare demonstration on August 16.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Progressive Teachers Union
secretary-general Raymond Majongwe said failure by government to give teachers
a meaningful increment will seriously affect the November examinations.
“Third term might not even re-open as long as the issues of
teachers are not addressed. We will not be deterred and we are sending a clear
message to government that we are not going to allow them to do what they are
doing by increasing prices of everything except wages,” Majongwe said.
Last week, government offered a 76% increase for civil
servants, which will see the lowest getting paid slightly above $1 000.
Civil servants rebuffed the offer saying it “does not meet
the stated position of the workers which is $4 750 for the least paid civil
servant”. Newsday
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