Zim worker and global trends

Francis Mupazviriho
One of the most defining features of this year’s Workers’ Day is that it comes under the banner of the new dispensation that has largely pronounced local investment promotion and employment creation.

This ultimately trickles down to the worker who drives the processes.

The ease of doing business, much as it is commonly defined in the outward sense of instituting reforms for foreign establishments, is in fact a blanket requisite.

It includes locals who yearn that their daily businesses are not scuttled by cumbersome and deterring procedures and other such excesses which have been defined as the bane for a conducive business environment.

On Tuesday, Zimbabwe joins the rest of the world in commemorating Workers’ Day.

Workers’ Day recognises employees as a collective group and individual contribution to different sectors of the economy. While it has become a repertoire to praise the worker for their invaluable contributions and the resolve towards the national good, there is also a spectre of the changing labour situation, globally. The changing labour dynamics are many and these include: the drive to highly technological societies which have in turn redefined the place of labour intensive organisation across economic sectors.

This reality therefore means that unlike before, more work could be done with less workforce.

But there continues this yearning for wholesome employment, for survival, or at least “starting a life”.

There is also the reality of labour migration, which has meant, quite often that today’s worker is often cosmopolitan, unlike in the past.

There is no doubt that these realities have had social effects at times for the worker, who in search of opportunities goes far flung and at times with a bearing on the family unit.

Furthermore, there are emerging sectors which are increasingly gaining appeal especially to the youth.

There is also the increasingly attractive graphical designing industry which our youths, having an entrepreneurial niche have found fervour to.

For Zimbabwe, despite these emerging trends, there is still much hope on the investment promotion drive and employment creation.

In this global architecture, it is therefore apparent that there are competing interests which have to find each other.

This is true, especially in our local context, where there is yearning for jobs, while at the same time there is the reality of globalisation which has in fact meant that some goods and services are now acquired through the click of a                                                                                     button.

This therefore explains the call towards productivity at the national level.  It is trite that the issue of competitiveness thus defines the global business environment and ultimately trickles down to the worker.

In this vein therefore, the local conditions for Zimbabwe exist under this international realm, which all shows that the worker still needs to have their rights protected from the employer, be they local or foreign.

The recently held Dialogue on Employment Creation by Government and the International Labour Organisation, which brought together Government officials, the private sector and experts from the region and internationally precisely underscored this incisive point.

It is equally important that Zimbabwe commemorates Workers’ Day, in the aftermath of the ruling which compelled employers who had terminated workers contracts arbitrarily to pay damages for loss of employment in retrospect.

This compensation is well founded in terms of Section 12 C of the Labour Act.

When one looks at Zimbabwe today, there is a new spirited drive to ensure the ease of doing business and investment promotion which have no doubt been the lynchpins of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s presidency.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Rwandan Development Board, Ms Clare Akamanzi, was recently in the country and shared her country’s journey to becoming one of the leading nations in Africa, in terms of the ease of doing business.

Today, there is now much emphasis towards productivity, even at the individual level as well.

We heard this very well in the inaugural address when the President mentioned that the time for bureaucratic excesses is over.

The drive towards productivity and having a new work ethic thus defines the new needed mettle for today’s worker.

There are continuous trends which are happening, however, including casual of labour.

Unlike in the olden days when employment was largely indefinite, or “permanent”, there is now more of casual labour.

Employers hire for shorter periods of time, due to low production and at times possibly to lessen contractual obligations which ordinarily come with a full-time service.

Yet despite all these emerging trends, it is trite that the worker still has rights, and this is precisely why social dialogue is key.

Despite the shifting scale of the labour divide on the global landscape, what remains key is decent work across the board.