council meeting in Harare on Saturday, ZCTU president, Lovemore Matombo said all workers are to stay away from work this week.
He said the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures), which were used to freeze salaries by President Robert Mugabe, were illegal, unconstitutional and violate Convention 98 on the Right to organized and collective bargaining.
“Our meeting has resolved that the strike will be there this week on the 19-20 September. We urge all workers to stay at home,” he said.
The ZCTU said it was also protesting because the government failed to address, among other issues, the contents of the September 13, 2006 ZCTU petition, which called for the indexing of salaries to the Poverty Datum line (PDL), currently at $8.2 million.
However, over 80 percent of the country’s workforce earns about $3 million on average.
Matombo said the supplementary budget presented by the minister of finance, Samuel Mumbengegwi last week, falls far short of workers’ expectations of a tax-free threshold that is linked to the PDL.
The ZCTU also announced that it has pulled out of the Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF) until the
Presidential Powers have been “clarified” by the government.
If the government fails to address the ZCTU concerns after the stay away, the labour movement would embark on massive and prolonged demonstrations.
The militant ZCTU president described next week’s job action as a “warm up.”
“Real action is coming. It will take the form of protests and demonstrations,” warned Matombo, who was flanked by his secretary general, Wellington Chibebe.
The proposed ZCTU stay away coincides with a massive industrial action announced by teachers last week.
The teachers are demanding a salary of $15 million, $5.2 million and $3 million transport allowance and housing allowances respectively.
Last week, Mugabe invoked the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act to freeze all wage and salary increments. The controversial law allows the veteran Zimbabwean leader to make legislation – lasting six months – without going to Parliament.
The ZCTU has clashed with Mugabe’s government on several occasions over an economic crisis gripping Zimbabwe for the past eight years and which has seen inflation soaring to more than 7 000 percent, rising poverty, unemployment and severe shortages of food.
Last year, Chibebe, Matombo and other labour activists were severely assaulted by the police as they prepared to lead a demonstration against the government for failing to address the workers’ grievances.
Chibebe spent several days hospitalized following the beating.
Mugabe accuses the labour movement of conspiring with his Western enemies and of using genuine worker grievances as a pretext to instigate Zimbabweans to revolt and overthrow his government-CAJ News.