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ZCTU Silver Jubilee Declaration
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)
October 19, 2005

WE, the elected leadership, Presidents and General Secretaries of Trade Unions affiliated to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) meeting at the Holiday Inn, Harare, from 17 to 19 October 2005 to reflect on 25 years of Zimbabwe’s Independence (the Silver Jubilee):

Noting;

• Some positive developments that occurred such as the promulgation of pro - active legislation, massive and rapid expansion of social and physical infrastructure (e.g. communications, education and health care) effective redistribution process involving provision of land and ancillary services such as extension and credit which produced a mini agrarian revolution. However, such progress was not sustained and is now in reverse;
• that while political independence was achieved in 1980, economic and human development remain elusive with the inherited economic dualism remaining intact;
• the sustenance of a segmented, enclave economy means the majority of the population (at least 80% of Zimbabweans) remain trapped in abject poverty, the burden of which is mainly borne by the less privileged, particularly women;
• real average incomes are below 1975 levels;
• the goal of attaining full, decent and durable employment continues to recede with the formal sector shrinking to the extent that the informal economy is now the mainstay of the economy, employing more than three times the people working in the formal sector;
• the marked trend towards casualisation of employment and feminisation of poverty;
• the deregulation of the economy since ESAP (1991) has resulted in de – industrialisation and has eroded jobs, incomes, worker rights and in mass job losses, new and vulnerable forms of employment, entrenched vulnerability, marginalisation and poverty;
• the shrinking of political space, freedoms and rights of the working people as government increasingly focused on political survival, resulting in the current descent into crisis and perverse forms of governance;
• the enactment of some progressive Labour laws to protect and advance the interests of working people such as the Minimum Wages Act of 1980, the Employment Act of 1980 which were later incorporated into the Labour Relations Act of 1985. However, these were to a large extent superseded by regressive amendments such as that of 1992, 1998 and 2002;
• some fundamental rights of employees especially with respect to organising, strike and other forms of collective job action were circumscribed. The worst case is with respect to the exclusion of the application of the Labour Relations Act in the Export Processing Zones, EPZ Act of 1994;
• the shift in economic paradigm from state intervention to one based on markets and accordingly from a more human centred development to market focused one, had disastrous consequences on the well being of the people;
• the descent into crisis since 1997 following the deleterious effects of poverty, which dissipated human capacity and the subsequent resort to management based on political as opposed to economic expediency;
• the fast-track land redistribution exercise has created new distortions with the programme benefiting the privileged at the expense of the needy, and the little attention given to productive use of the land;
• the lip service paid to mainstreaming gender has resulted in the persistence of gender inequality, stigmatisation and stereotyping, discrimination, marginalisation and increased vulnerability of women and children;
• Zimbabwe is still governed by the Lancaster House Constitution, which has been amended 17 times after 25 years.
• political independence without guarantees of freedom of speech, assembly, movement, workers’ and trade union rights, tolerance and celebration of diversity is hollow;
• political independence without inclusive economic and human development is incomplete and a source of instability and political crisis as is currently the case in Zimbabwe;

Believing that;

Zimbabwe has sufficient resources and management capacity to ensure everyone achieves an acceptable standard of living.

Resolve that:

1. Government should uphold, respect and promote good governance on the basis of the UN Charter on Human and Fundamental Rights and other conventions that it has ratified, uphold the rule of law and safeguard the rights enshrined in the Constitution;
2. ZCTU demands that a new people-driven Constitution which shall enshrine fundamental social and labour rights as well as gender and sustainable human development be written as a matter of urgency;
3. A set of agreed national ethos should be adopted to create a sense of nationalism and sovereignty around which a united nation is built. Such an ethos should promote a set of values and principles that define the national agenda;
4. Short-term political expediency (the creation of a Senate and resorting to unbudgeted consumption expenditures) should not override universal values and principles, economic and human development;
5. Laws that circumscribe and undermine individual and collective rights and freedoms such as AIPPA, POSA, sections of the Labour Relations Act as amended, should be repealed;
6. A stakeholder, participatory institutional framework for social dialogue along the lines of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) of South Africa should be established to ensure broad based participation in policy formulation, negotiation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation; i.e. should be a mandate driven process;
7. Market-based economic strategies, which have caused untold problems for the working people of Zimbabwe and elsewhere, especially women and children, should be discontinued and replaced with a sustainable human development strategy as defined by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP);
8. The new distortions created by multiple farm ownership, absentee (urban-based) farmers and failure to decongest communal areas should be addressed in conjunction with the empowerment of the A1 farmers to ensure productive utilisation of the land;
9. A conscious approach through affirmative action must be adopted to empower the hitherto neglected and marginalized non-formal sectors (including the informal economy) and groups (blacks, peasants, women, people living with disabilities, people living with HIV / AIDS and youths) to achieve an internally-driven (endogenous) and integrated economy;
10. Mainstreaming gender at all levels should be implemented on the basis of the various protocols that Zimbabwe has acceded to and an agreed national gender policy must be adopted and implemented with the participation of all stakeholders;
11. Concerted efforts to develop and promote indigenous science and technology should be promoted as a basis for value addition (beneficiating raw materials);
12. The current pro-globalisation regional integration should be replaced by a solidarity-based regional integration which promotes industrial development and protects national economies from the adverse impacts of globalisation;
13. Efforts to liberalise economies through negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), World Trade Organisation (WTO), and especially the Doha Development Round of negotiations and the forthcoming 6^th WTO Ministerial scheduled for Hong Kong in December 2005 should be resisted;
14. The operation and processes of the WTO should be democratised and the Policy Coherence Initiative which seeks to harmonise the work of the various UN agencies should be implemented as a matter of urgency;
15. The principle of Special and Differential Treatment which acknowledges asymmetries in development between developed and developing countries and allows for preferential treatment of developing countries must be retained;
16. Every effort must be undertaken to identify best practices (locally, regionally and globally), which should inform local processes and practices. This was the basis for the development of the emerging East Asian economies;
17. All ZCTU affiliates should abide by and promote democratic practices and culture including promotion of women participation at all levels and build internal capacities to achieve full unionisation of their sectors and effective servicing of membership by 2010;
18. All affiliate unions should undertake studies on the state of their sectors, create a culture of information gathering and exchange and promote proactive measures to safeguard employment, promote the decent work agenda and an employment-intensive growth path for their respective sectors by 2008;
19. ZCTU should undertake mass education (conscientisation) programmes, including Summer and Winter Schools as is the case with the Nigerian Labour Congress, COSATU and other national centres;
20. ZCTU to be accountable to all its affiliates and at the same time affiliates to be accountable to ZCTU so as to promote harmonious relations;
21. ZCTU in conjunction with affiliates undertakes to fight for full, decent and durable employment, macroeconomic stability, economic, social and political recovery, the upholding of universal worker and trade union rights, and the adoption of a sustainable human development strategy that is people-centred and allows them to live long and healthy lives with considerable choices;
22. ZCTU shall engage in any other action to ensure that the above is adhered to.

Lovemore Matombo
President

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