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Workers’ Day passed in Zimbabwe yesterday largely unnoticed. This is in sharp contrast to the May Day celebrations of old that were characterised by high-level participation and excitement among ordinary workers. In the past, the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare was always represented at the highest level at national celebrations, often held at Gwanzura Stadium in Harare.
Workers used to mass at the national event as well as provincial and district venues across the country to celebrate the day set aside for government, private sector employers and employees themselves to reflect on their important roles in the socio-economic development of nations and their personal welfare. Now, it has most regrettably become a low-profile event for only a few.
Yet in many parts of the world, Workers’ Day is a huge event.
There are many possible reasons why ours is now a small day. We regard the first one as the biggest, an over-politicised labour system that clearly fronts parochial political thinking and goals. Since Morgan Tsvangirai, the late Gibson Sibanda, Thokozani Khupe, Milton Gwetu and others used the platform of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) to launch the MDC in 1999, the labour federation, the country’s biggest by membership and its oldest, has clearly been an appendage of opposition politics. In many instances, officials in ZCTU were MDC officials at the same time. Rather, the ZCTU was MDC and MDC was ZCTU. It changed a bit when MDC split in 2005, but intrinsically, they were one and the same thing, now the ZCTU associating itself more with Tsvangirai’s MDC-T than Professor Welshman Ncube’s MDC.
Secondly, the day may have lost its old significance because of substantial job losses in the formal sector and the phenomenal growth of the informal sector. Illegal sanctions have caused widespread company closures and resulting job cuts. Many of those that have lost their jobs are running small, informal businesses and do not count themselves as workers so Workers’ Day has lost relevance for them. The majority of those still at work are on slave wages and are so demoralised they are only working because they have no alternative. We have some workers who have not been paid in five years.
The third possible factor which is connected to the foregoing two can be ordinary apathy. A too politicised labour market does not appeal to everyone, and an under-paid or unpaid worker does not have time to commemorate a day that reminds them about their difficult circumstances. It would be like celebrating their indigence.
There certainly can be more possible reasons for the loss of relevance for Workers’ Day in our country but these three must be the more pivotal ones.
This is not an ideal situation. Workers need a moment when they are recognised by their employers, government and other interested parties for the important role they play in building and driving economies and sustaining the social networks on which economies thrive.
Our situation where such an important occasion passes by silently as if we do not have a formal workforce is most unfortunate.
We agree that trade unionism is indeed a political pursuit and has been instrumental in establishing many political orders in countries like South Africa with Cosatu, China and even here in Zimbabwe in the 1940s, but it serves no purpose if narrow politics such as we have negate the fundamentals.
As we pointed out earlier and as a consequence of the unholy alliance between ZCTU and MDCs, many of us, general workers, employers as well as the government rightly saw in the labour federation, MDC. This muddled relations as government naturally treated the ZCTU as a political challenge to it. This meant that even at times when the ZCTU attempted to put aside their political hat to put on the workers’, government did not see their advocacy as one designed to benefit workers, but MDC.
Also, many workers, with no interest in politics but are interested in working for their families in a stable environment lost all respect for politicised labour. They simply stayed away, leaderless.
Considering that government and workers are key actors in the labour sector, ZCTU got itself isolated, serving only themselves and their political masters. The net result is the sad situation we have now when workers actually lose interest in a commemoration designated to celebrate them.
Now that the politics do not seem encouraging for the ZCTU as their master party has failed to attain political power and is in actual fact tottering, this must be the chance for the trade union movement to rise again as advocates for strictly workers’ rights and interests. They poisoned the environment for themselves and everyone, but the time to shift focus must be now.
Online Reporter