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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Price Controls and Shortages - Index of articles
ZCTU
will resist any salary cuts
Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)
July 11, 2007
It has come to the attention
of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) that plans are underway
to cut salaries of all workers by 50 percent in line with the price
cuts that have been indiscriminately taking place.
This plan is allegedly
being masterminded by business, government and the Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe. The ZCTU would like to make it known that it will fiercely
resist this move as it is retrogressive and goes against the dictates
of International Labour Organization Conventions. Government and
business are the only parties that came up with the idea, which
goes against the spirit of tripartism enshrined in ILO Convention
144. The government is running around like a headless chicken without
to say the least.
The Labour
Act does not give the Minister of Labour or any other government
agency any power whatsoever to slash salaries of employees who are
covered by the Act.
Already workers have
been on an uneven footing with salaries falling way below the Poverty
Datum Line. It would be unfair for government and its agencies to
want to cut salaries by half when workers are struggling to survive.
The PDL was at $5,5m as at end of May 2007 and salaries were supposed
to be increased to that level and reviewed on a monthly basis thereafter
to match the PDL. Parties to the TNF agreed to this arrangement
and signed the Incomes and Prices Stabilization Protocol on June
1 2007. Prices have escalated since then and neither business nor
government has bothered to raise salaries to match the PDL.
The workers are tired
of being sacrificial lambs and bearing the brunt of bad governance,
bad economic policies, and ill-thought political projects. The ZCTU
reiterates that an economy cannot be run on the basis of political
projects but on sustainable programmes.
Labour demands a return
to sanity from government, business and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
A country cannot be run on the whim of ill-thought political projects
that are of no benefit to the ordinary citizens. We demand that
the authorities rethink on this heartless strategy as it will certainly
throw the country into chaos and eventually anarchy. As of now some
workers have been placed on forced leave.
The ZCTU is prepared
to resist any move to cut salaries of all workers by 50 percent
and therefore, urges workers to be prepared for massive resistance.
Visit the ZCTU
fact sheet
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