|
Back to Index
Labour
union presses ahead with protest plan
Hendricks
Chizhanje, ZimOnline
March 23, 2007
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=1087
HARARE - Zimbabwe's
labour federation on Thursday said it will press ahead with a two-day
nationwide work boycott in a fortnight in spite of a crackdown by
the government on opposition and civic groups.
The Harare authorities
violently put down a prayer meeting organised by the Save
Zimbabwe Campaign, a coalition fighting for political reform
in Zimbabwe.
Morgan Tsvangirai, who
heads the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party,
and other opposition leaders, were later severely tortured while
in police custody, triggering international outrage over their treatment.
Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) secretary general Wellington
Chibebe, told ZimOnline yesterday that his union remained unfazed
over Harare's threats to crush any illegal protests.
Chibebe said the ZCTU
was not calling off the April 3 and 4 stay away arguing that Harare
had failed to meet the union's demands to award workers a
minimum wage linked to the country's poverty datum line.
The breadline currently
stands at Z$648 000 per month for an average family of five.
"The strike action
plan is going ahead. Hunger is the biggest threat (than a government
crackdown). Our cadres are in the field mobilising the workers,"
said Chibebe.
The ZCTU boss said the
union was not new to police brutality as most of them had been savagely
beaten by state security agents while in police custody last September
for attempting to march in Harare against worsening economic hardships.
"On September 13,
(2006) we went through the same predicament. We know we will be
beaten but that cannot stop us from going ahead with the stay away,"
said Chibebe.
Last month, the ZCTU
said it would call the job boycott to protest against the government's
failure to address Zimbabwe's eight year economic crisis that
has seen inflation shooting beyond 1 700 percent, the highest in
the world.
State Security
Minister Didymus Mutasa last month said the government would crush
the labour protest. - ZimOnline
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
TOP
|
