In an interview with The Zimbabwean, the Secretary General, Japhet Moyo, revealed that Zanu (PF’s) over-reliance on the Asian country has led to a soft approach in dealing with violations of workers’ rights by Chinese companies.
“The issue of the Chinese has got something to do with the politics of the country and it seems it was decided somewhere else behind closed doors. There might be some clauses that make the Chinese immune to our legislation on labour and their attitude in treating workers tells it all,” said Moyo.
He said it was regrettable that the Chinese were the biggest flouters of legislation on workers’ rights at a time the ZCTU was fighting for the amendment of the labour laws to bring them into sync with international standards.
“As bad as our labour laws might be, the Chinese are not even following them. Whether they are being protected from above remains a mystery,” said Moyo.
Zanu (PF) launched its Look East Policy in 2003 as a way of compensating for the loss of Western investment due to human rights abuses by the government. Since then there have been numerous reports of Chinese employers abusing workers. The abuse ranges from long working hours to paltry salaries, and includes physical abuse.
Moyo also criticised the Indigenisation policy for having worsened the plight of workers.
“If you look at the companies that have been indigenised so far, most of them are going down due to mismanagement and looting of resources. Also you have investors shying away because of this policy and that creates a problem for the workers,” he added.
“There is no problem with empowering our people, but the way we implement our policies sometimes creates a problem.”
He said the discord among Zimbabwe’s coalition partners on the policy had created much anxiety among foreign investors, and was not helping fight the high unemployment rate currently estimated at 90%.
Moyo decried the lack of transparency around revenue from diamond sales, which he said could have gone a long way in improving salaries for government workers. We add our voice to calls for accountability and transparency on revenue from diamond sales. The nation needs this money desperately,” he said.
Post published in: News