Back to Index

ZCTU unveils new stance on polls
Shame Makoshori, Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe)
January 03, 2008

http://allafrica.com/stories/200801040557.html

Zimbabwe's main labour body, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) this week said it had resolved to throw its full weight behind "labour friendly" candidates in parliamentary and senate elections scheduled for this year.

The ZCTU said it would back the candidates in order to influence the enactment of friendly policies to benefit the country's embattled workers. The majority of Zimbabwe's workers, who are heavily taxed, earn incomes far below the poverty datum line.

"We resolved to support labour friendly people, whether they are from ZANU-PF or the Movement for Democratic Change, to be elected as MPs (Members of Parliament) because we want labour friendly laws," Wellington Chibebe, the ZCTU secretary general, said.

Chibebe told The Financial Gazette that trade unionists had agreed at a strategic meeting in December that Zimbabwe should follow the example of other countries that have supported the election of politicians sympathetic to the cause of workers.

"Some countries have followed this route. We have seen that there are some untouchable politicians who are both MPs and business people. When they are in parliament they don't promote the welfare of workers but they come up with unfriendly policies," Chibebe said.

Last year, the ZCTU declared it was high time everyone, including the country's ruling elite and employers, bore the brunt of the escalating economic crisis, which has hitherto only affected the poor.

"Time is high to share the effects of the economic meltdown. It is also time to disclose executives' perks," Chibebe recently told a gathering of business executives in the capital.

"You live and swim in luxury, paying selected workers in foreign currency. This will create serious labour relations problems because it is discrimination. Managers become Americans while workers remain Zimbabweans, rural Zimbabweans for that matter. How can we have a situation where you earn $1 billion but someone is earning $50 million? Five kilogrammes of meat cost $50 million," Chibebe charged.

He expressed grave concern over the country's tax regime.

"The highest tax is 47 percent, NSSA three percent, AIDS Levy three percent and VAT 17 percent, leaving workers with only 30 percent. Business is lucky because you are only taxed 30 percent tax. We have seen that business and government's attitude is the same. As we speak, Zimbabwe's wages are equal to 1975 levels. That is why we have adopted the polepole (go slow). If you have never heard about it ask government," Chibebe said.

In South Africa the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has been influential in the election of Jacob Zuma as the leader of the ruling African National Congress, strategically positioning him as the next president of that country.

But unlike the ZCTU, COSATU holds more clout in that workers overwhelmingly support most of its job actions.

The ZCTU's influence has been diluted by perennial clashes with the government, which sees it as advancing the interests of the MDC.

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