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Emcoz represents the interest of the employers while the workers’ interests are represented by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.
In the past, the two representative bodies have expressed different views on matters such as the Poverty Datum Line (PDL), executive perks, and remission of union dues, indigenisation regulations and productivity.
Emcoz behaviour change and communications officer Mr Edmund Mushambi said the two representative bodies last month held a bipartite forum to build capacity at the top leadership of the social partners for engagement at the Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF).
“This was done through a skills course on mutual gains negotiations after which the partners received presentations from Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat) and the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ) on the PDL and minimum wages.
“The social partners appreciated the importance of parties meeting each other’s needs and resolved that for the good of the economy, both sides will practise the skills they learnt.”
He said LEDRIZ pointed out that the PDL was an external factor which the labour market had no control over.
“It advised the social partners to focus on issues like productivity and working conditions which are internal and which the labour market can control. A MoU will be circulated to employers and workers for a reaction by the end of July 2012. There is going to be an urgent meeting between the topmost leadership of Emcoz and ZCTU to chart an action plan for the rest of the year,” he said.
He said the parties had agreed to finalise the establishment of the bipartite forum to operationalise their interventions for effective social dialogue on labour market issues
He said it had also been agreed that there was no sufficient information for an informed discussion on PDL.
“A joint research on the subject was necessary to acquire the information needed to determine or discuss PDL,” he said, adding that they would engage two consultants to collate information on PDL.
Employee representative organisations have raised concerns that most companies were paying salaries below the PDL, which stands at $567.
In addition, concerns from trade unions have been raised over the high salaries executives were earning at the expense of the workers.
Last year, ZCTU established that some company executives were earning salaries of up to $13 000 a month.
Online Reporter