‘Unions still relevant as voice of voiceless’

Business Correspondent
ZIMBABWE will tomorrow (Friday) joins the rest of the world to commemorate Workers’ Day, also known as Labour Day or May Day. On this day commemorated every year on the first day of May recognising labourers and the working classes, Post Business interviewed some trade unions and affiliates about the importance of the day in the ongoing plight of labour movements worldwide.

With the current liquidity crunch in the country that has hard-hit most large-scale companies in the formal sector paving way for a new-economy steered by the informal sector, debate on the relevance of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and other affiliate unions has often been raised.

According to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency 2014 labour force survey, 61 percent of job opportunities countrywide are in the informal sector compared to 13 percent in the manufacturing sector.

There has also often been conflict between trade unions and Government over the years, with some trade unions and affiliates being labelled as agents of regime change.
In an interview on Monday, ZCTU secretary-general, Mr Japhet Moyo, said regardless of the collapse of the formal sector trade unions would forever remain relevant.
He said so long there remains a worker and employer barricade, whether in the formal or informal sector, trade unions would remain relevant.

“In Zimbabwe, the place of work might have changed because we used to have many large-scale factories, but the embodiment of May Day remains and we will join the rest of the world to commemorate the day.

“As trade unions we do not just represent workers, but interrogate the whole system in general and become the voice of the voiceless,” said Mr Moyo.
He, however, agreed that the invisibility of the informal sector and the family-run business nature of the enterprises made it difficult for trade unions to break into the sector.

He said they were nonetheless pushing to breakthrough in the sector and ensure that the rights of workers in the informal sector were not being infringed.
“The informal sector should not be a jungle where no rules apply. Whether the enterprise is family run or has five employees, people should be allowed to get organised and join trade unions.

“This is where our relevance remains and as ZCTU we are already driving this through our affiliate, the Zimbabwe Chamber of Informal Economic Associations,” he said.
Mr Moyo applauded the call by Government last week to tighten retrenchment regulations on all companies.

He said the move further reinforced their relevance as trade unions in contesting and exposing the unfair disparities in corporate cutbacks that often disadvantage low-grade workers while top-executives are left out sucking companies dry.

On the recently held ZCTU-organised demonstrations against labour market flexibility that were held countrywide, Mr Moyo said very few people understood the consequences of labour market freedom, which strongly empowers employers.

He said if Government had just realised the current unjustified retrenchments by companies under a system where the Labour Act calls for collective bargaining, then what-more under a system where employers ran the show willy-nilly through labour market flexibility.

“Every employee wants the company they work for to survive, but what they want foremost is transparency from their employer, which is what the existing collective bargaining system guarantees.

“However, under a labour market flexibility system, employers are empowered to dictate and corporate greed eventually creeps leading to cheap labour and exploitation of workers, which is what we simply look out for and lobby against as labour movements,” said the ZCTU secretary general.

Zimbabwe Teachers Association secretary general, Mr John Mulilo, echoed the same sentiments and said labour movements were still relevant.
He, however, said splinter groups that push political agendas were the one’s losing the plot.

He said some labour movements were often misconstrued as agents of regime change because they would have shifted from being workers unions to political movements dictated by financiers, who in most cases were political activists.

“We (ZIMTA) have been accused of being bed-fellows with Government by the Progressive Teachers Union Zimbabwe, but that is not true.
“As ZIMTA we work with the government of day because. If you do not work with the Government of the day how can you negotiate for the workers?

“We negotiate with the Government and will never allow ourselves to be dictated by people outside Government operating as an apolitical union,” said Mr Mulilo.
He added that Government is currently the largest employer in the formal sector, which is why ZIMTA remains an essential labour movement for the majority civil servants.

Mr Mulilo said on May Day, labour movements remind Government about their role, which is to obligate it to come up with economic policies that turnaround the economy and create employment for its citizenry.

He added that ZIMTA was against labour market flexibility.
He said if labour flexibility was currently failing in developed countries in Europe what-more in a developing country like Zimbabwe?