HARARE - Despite continued persecution teachers in Zimbabwe have vowed to continue their fight for better salaries and working conditions and have threatened a strike if their salaries are not increased by June as promised by President Robert Mugabe. In an interview, Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) President Takavafira Zhou said that teachers in the country were not going to have any more talks with the government as they have had enough. The recent meeting with the President marks the end of negotiations with this government. If the commitment by Mugabe to review our salaries does not come to fruition, other methods of social engineering may be employed, said Zhou.
It remains to be seen whether the cash strapped government will keep its word. Most civil servants earn less than $300 a month with the lowest paid taking home $120. The salary dispute has been dragging on since the inception of the Government of National Unity (GNU), with civil servants demanding that they be paid from proceeds from Chiadwza diamonds. Zanu PF has heaped blame on Minister of Finance Tendai Biti who has repeatedly said that the government does not have money to effect the salary hikes.
According to a civil service audit carried out by the Ministry of Public Service last year, the government payroll includes thousands of ghost workers. Meanwhile the President of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU), Lovemore Matombo, said the labour organisation was also waiting for the June deadline and was consulting with other unions on the need for a collective industrial action if salaries and working conditions are not improved.
Let us have a collective approach to this thing. We are no longer going to see civil servants strike alone. Every labour movement has a problem with its employer, and what we are saying is lets galvanise support so that as we approach June, all of us are geared to go on strike, Matombo told the Legal Monitor.
Post published in: News