ZCTU will resist any salary cuts 11-07-07

 

ZCTU will resist any salary cuts*

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.

10 July 2007

Wellington Chibebe

*SECRETARY GENERAL*