Pharmaceutical workers to strike

Pharmaceutical Retailers and Medical Allied Workers’ Union (PRMAWU) wants a minimum wage of $150 billion for June as well as pegging of transport allowances at the cost of commuter fares.

If our employers continue to refuse negotiations for a new salary and allowances all our members in the pharmaceutical industry are going on strike with effect June 23, Misheck Tsholuwa, secretary-general of PRMAWU, said.  

The recent increments which set the minimum wage for the commercial sector including the pharmaceutical industry at $12billion from three billion dollars, a transport allowance of six billion and housing allowance of one billion dollars doesn’t make sense in the this hyperinflationary environment, Tsholuwa said.

The PRMAWU secretary general also took a swipe at employers in the pharmaceutical industry for refusing to form an employers association to facilitate the setting up of a national employment council to undertake collective bargaining negotiations with workers’ representatives.

Since the PRMAWU was registered in February this year, employers have been  refusing to form an employers organisation preferring instead to hold wage  negotiations  under  the auspices  of Commercial Workers’ Union  of Zimbabwe (CWUZ) which we are no longer part of after the formation our union, Tsholuwa said. The reason for breaking away from CWUZ was that workers in pharmaceutical industry did not have a voice in National Employment Council (NEC) for the commercial sectors.