Zimbabwe suffered an acute economic meltdown from 2000 when it grabbed about white owned farms, with the country experiencing hyperinflation, shortages of commodities and a declining industry that led to company closures while millions of Zimbabweans relocated to other countries in search of better fortunes.
A coalition government between 2009 and 2013 helped relatively stabilise the economy which became dollarised, but major gains of this period were eroded following disputed elections two years ago.
Independent economists say Zimbabwe is suffering an unemployment rate of more than 80 percent, even though government insists that it is around 11 percent.
Japhet Moyo, ZCTU secretary general, told The Zimbabwean in an exclusive interview that company closures were negatively affecting union members’ activities.
In 2013, ZCTU said around 300 companies were closing every week, forcing the majority of retrenched people into the informal sector.
“Labour thrives when you have a vibrant membership and you have people who are in employment. Unfortunately, this is not so because our affiliates are losing their membership through company closures.
“When that happens, your focus is on how best to ensure the remaining jobs are kept and the best ways of ensuring that companies are set up to absorb the unemployed. That means labour activism will suffer. Without membership, there is no organised labour,” Moyo said.
Critics have of late accused ZCTU of failing to agitate for workers’ rights, saying the umbrella labour body had lost its fighting spirit.
Moyo said, unlike in the past when it was easy to mobilise people employed in the formal sector, it was proving difficult to organise those that had turned to the informal economy to eke out a living.
“Instead of formal offices and industries, people are now scattered in the streets, where it is difficult to organise them. Most of them are not registered and are in fact reluctant to be registered,” added Moyo.
He said some of the ZCTU’s 36 member unions were however looking at ways to tap into the informal sector to ensure that workers employed there were well represented.
Moyo said workers were still bound by a repressive labour law and regulations even though the new constitution adopted in 2013 gave them the right to strike.
“We are still saddled with a labour law that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to go on collective job action. The Labour Act must urgently be aligned with the new constitution so that workers can easily express their grievances through industrial action,” he said.
Unions must still seek majority votes from their members before striking. Recently workers in the tobacco industry were denied the right to strike on the basis of the labour act when they indicated their wish to protest poor working conditions.
ZCTU has approached the labour ministry to push for a bill that would amend the current labour law
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