BULAWAYO Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) president Lovemore Matombo has urged workers to brace for industrial action to press employers to peg salaries and wages to the poverty datum line or cost of living. Speaking at a labour forum in Bulawayo last week Matombo did not say when exactly the strike would be called but said it would be before the end of the year.
The ZCTU boss said the unity government had done little to improve the plight of workers some of whose wages he said had dropped to below 1980-levels.
The battle is still very much in our hands, said Matombo. I am going to call for strike action before the end of the year. This is because most employers are paying wages that were never paid during the colonial period. Why should these things happen thirty years after independence? Worse still, some of the bosses belatedly pay their workers in bits and pieces.
Matombo said the ZCTU wants the lowest factory worker paid a net wage of US$500 per month. Our proposal, which is already known by the employers and Government, is that a floor sweeper should earn a net wage of $500, after the necessary statutory deductions.
This figure is serious and must not be countered with the perennial pleas of liquidity crunch that come from business.
The coalition government of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai last year discarded use of the Zimbabwean dollar, made worthless by hyperinflation, in favour of foreign currencies such as the U.S. dollar and South African rand.
Basic goods, which had disappeared during the hyperinflation period, are back on the supermarket shelves but many Zimbabweans, with an average monthly salary of $170 are struggling to make ends meet.
Post published in: News