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In Zimbabwe, workers this year once again find no reason to celebrate as their plight keeps getting worse by the day. The day is fast losing its significance to the ordinary worker.
This is because of the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, the growing chasm between salaries for top executives in companies and the worker at the shop floor. According to a recent survey by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) top executives in most companies earn salaries of over $15 000 a month while the ordinary workers are paid well below the poverty datum line of $500 a month.
In the banking sector, chief executives now earn more than $12 000 against $497 for the lowest paid employee, while in the insurance sector, the highest paid employee is paid over $6 000 and the lowest paid gets $256.
In the hospitality sector, chief executives earn more than $11 000 while lowly paid workers get $154 a month. Interestingly, most workers earn salaries below the $500 poverty datum line.
Yet our economy is said to be still in transition. Worse still, in cities like Bulawayo, companies continue to sing the blues, throwing thousands of workers onto the streets as the promised rescue package, the $40 million Distressed Industries and Marginalised Areas Fund (Dimaf) remains elusive.
A majority of workers therefore find it hard to get anything tangible that they have laboured for over the years.
The prevailing economic challenges have seen workers’ rights relegated to the bottom on the priority list for most companies.
Like we said last year, the ushering in of multi-currencies in February 2009 brought with it some relief and the much-needed economic stability. Workers looked forward to a brighter future where they would be adequately remunerated but three years down the line, their future looks bleak.
There has not been any reasonable improvement in the conditions of service for many workers in the country. The majority of the country’s workers, civil servants included, earn less than or around $300 a month.
Only last week, service delivery was almost plunged to a halt as Bulawayo City Council workers downed tools demanding their dues. In fact, the council workers, like many others in various sectors of the economy throughout the country, are owed salaries for several months as their employers maintain that they are unable to pay citing the prevailing economic conditions.
It is the workers who bear the burden as they are asked to tighten their belts. But on the other hand, the prices of goods and services are not static, thus exerting more pressure on the workers who have to fend for their families and are faced with mounting utility bills.
The tragedy in Zimbabwe is that labour unions, which are supposed to be custodians of the workers, appear clueless as to what should be done to empower the workers. Labour union leaders are either busy fighting for top posts in the unions or meddling in politics to care for the generality of the workers. One needs to look no further than the in-fighting in the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, which used to be the country’s largest worker representative body.
Elections to choose workers representatives resulted in the ZCTU late last year splitting in the middle,leaving workers not knowing who to follow. This division was more glaring at Workers Day commemorations held countrywide.
Yet it is the Government, led by President Mugabe, which has taken a keen interest in the plight of workers by coming up with share ownership schemes to empower the workers and the communities they live in. Government has also come up with the indigenisation and economic empowerment programmes aimed at ensuring that Zimbabwean workers are empowered to own means of production.
We therefore call upon workers to support these programmes as it is only then that they can be able to claim their pound of flesh from employers.
We want to once again call upon labour unions to stop dabbling in politics and champion the cause of workers through supporting empowerment for the workers.
Online Reporter